"Klik is unique among software installation systems for Linux, in that each package installed through klik is self-contained, isolated from the rest of the operating system. Klik isn't a package management system; rather it's an application that lets you download and run software without installing it."
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Member since:2005-07-02
Well, you have another option (in addition to source, which ideally will be packaged by the distro maintainers): use on the many "standalone" installers available.
Personally, I think that Klik is a more interesting solution, however you *do* have to install the Klik client first (if it's not preinstalled on your distro).
Make klik ship in the top five distros on DistroWatch
That would be a good thing, yes.
and include a right-click option for "permanent install" (converts the klikapp to your system's package format, and installs it)
That would be much more difficult...remember that Klik pacakges (unless I'm mistaken) use static libraries, so it would be difficult to "convert" the Kliked apps into packages. That's why it's not there to replace package managers, but rather to offer a way to ship additional apps for Linux PCs that have the Klik client installed.
Member since:
2006-11-02
I know it's not a full blown package manager. That's what makes it so nice. Right now, if you want to make an app for Linux that's not going to be in the repos of major distros, you have two choices.
1) Source only. While this may work for some people, building source is still a tedious affair. Not to mention you have to have the correct libraries (the -dev versions of course), and whatnot. Not something most humans want to do often. And, it is simply not an option for commercial apps.
2) Make packages beforehand. Okay. Sounds nice, until you notice you have to build RPMs to run on RH, SuSE, and Mandriva, DEBs to run on Ubuntu, Debian, Linspire, and TGZs for those pesky Slackware people. And then you have to test it on every distro because they all have their own versions of the libraries, FS structure, etc. This can be really time consuming unless you are a big operation like IBM, Google Microsoft, etc.
So now we have klik. It's a disk image that you can double-click and run regardless of what distro you're on. Make klik ship in the top five distros on DistroWatch, and include a right-click option for "permanent install" (converts the klikapp to your system's package format, and installs it) and shipping an app to Linux suddenly looks much more viable.