Will AUR migrate to flatpack and or snap packages?

mitcoes · 2016-09-26 13:50:22

AUR is faster than PPAs but when the compiling is long it isn't.
RPMFusion is faster, but it has not as many packages as PPAs and AUR

Flatpack and snaps are the new cross distros package systems

So if AUR can migrate or make a version for flatpack / snap would serve the entire GNU/Linux community (AUR already can be used in RPM distros)

And the AUR's packages installation will be faster, and even faster the DELTA UPGRADES.

And perhaps this delta upgrades (that pacman already allows but nobody uses) will help to put GNU/Linux distros in more mobile devices as laptops, convertibles, tablets, tv boxes and phones.

WorMzy · 2016-09-26 14:10:34

I doubt it, it would take up a lot more space for very little benefit (at least from an Arch POV). Besides, how would you know that $usersubmittedflatpak is safe? You can read PKGBUILDs and inspect sources, but AFAIK you can't tell whether a flatpak is malicious or not.

olive · 2016-09-26 14:40:31

I doubt we can really have cross distro packages. The package have to deal with the particularity of the specific Linux distributions. That's why upstream don't usually distribute packages. You can't take package from one distro to another and expect that it will work, at least not without problems. A lot of third party (especially proprietary) software vendor try to achieve that (look at the installer for Google earth, proprietary graphic card drivers, etc.). This always need to be repackaged if we want something that can be installed out of the box, otherwise tweaks are always necessary.

Also providing precompiled packages without a clear enforced rule that the source of the exact same package must also be distributed will likely result in a bunch of broken unfixable packages; and would result in a lot GPL violations. It was the problem with Slackware several years ago (there was third party repositories of non reproducible binary packages that might or might not work). They fixed it by providing something very similar to the AUR.

Last edited by olive (2016-09-26 14:41:45)

eschwartz · 2016-09-27 02:27:05

I was under the impression that flatpak and snap provide their own package management, why do we need to change anything???

Additionally, a "migration" implies no longer providing the current PKGBUILD system at all. :headscratch:

But mostly, I think we should wait to ask this question, at least until either one of those systems actually manages to become stable enough to use without falling over. I was under the impression that both are still in beta (despite Ubuntu's standard premature press releases).

...

What is the difference between these and *-bin packages anyway? Except the system used to generate the standalone binaries.
There is no rule against submitting *-bin packages to the AUR, but most users prefer the compiled-from-source versions of things.

...

Aside: pacman deltas are still going to be faster than flatpak/snap, at least if you understand what they are.
They are actual end-user-installable *.pkg.tar.xz package archives just like any other pacman package, except that they are actually the (xdelta) diff between two different *.pkg.tar.xz archives.

They are just as fast to download as flatpak/snap, by definition. Because they too deduplicate content from previous versions...

Granted they only work for binary repos that enable deltas... but that is up to the person running the repo, just like flatpak/snap is up to the person running the flatpak/snap repo.

Why do you believe flatpak/snap will automagically make things *faster* than pacman deltas?

Last edited by eschwartz (2016-09-27 02:34:47)

olive · 2016-09-27 06:39:00

Eschwartz wrote:

There is no rule against submitting *-bin packages to the AUR, but most users prefer the compiled-from-source versions of things.

But the AUR only admit the possibility to submit a build script. Sure, the build script can use a precompiled software, but it is usually official build done by upstream that has been repackaged. So at least we know precisely where it come from and what it is. What we should avoid at all cost is softwares that has been hand compiled and possibly patched with no possibility to know what has been done, no possibility to fix it or adapt it.

Last edited by olive (2016-09-27 06:47:14)

Arch Linux

#1 2016-09-26 13:50:22

Will AUR migrate to flatpack and or snap packages?

#2 2016-09-26 14:10:34

Re: Will AUR migrate to flatpack and or snap packages?

#3 2016-09-26 14:40:31

Re: Will AUR migrate to flatpack and or snap packages?

#4 2016-09-27 02:27:05

Re: Will AUR migrate to flatpack and or snap packages?

#5 2016-09-27 06:39:00

Re: Will AUR migrate to flatpack and or snap packages?

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