Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 25th Jun 2008 22:31 UTC, submitted by Rahul
Earlier this week, we reported on the Berlin Packaging API, an effort to consolidate the various different packaging formats and managers in the Linux world. Many compared this new effort to PackageKit, and today Linux.com is running an article detailing what PackageKit exactly is, with a few quotes from the project's lead developer, Richard Hughes.
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Member since:2008-03-17
RE[7]: There is no spoon
by FooBarWidget on Fri 27th Jun 2008 13:06
in reply to "RE[6]: There is no spoon"
Member since:2005-11-11
Member since:
2005-11-11
Yeah sure. But the problem is I have to create a different package for different distributions, even if they use the same packaging format. Debian and Ubuntu are probably compatible, with RedHat/Fedora and SuSE are most definitely not. Mandriva requires another separately built RPM. Slackware uses tgz, and people tell me that it doesn't even support dependency handling. Gentoo uses yet another system.
On top of that, different versions of the same distro might not be compatible either. A package built on a newer version of a distribution doesn't always work on an older version, requiring me to use an old version via a VM. Packages built for older versions don't always work or don't work out-of-the-box on newer versions because of missing libraries or other issues.
Do you see where I'm going? If I am to distribute binary packages then this can quickly become a tedious and boring task. Why should people not try to make things compatible so that it's possible to build a single package? Why should I spend 50% of my time building packages for 10 distros and versions, instead of utilizing that time to fix bugs or create new features?