Let's discuss Zero Install ^.^

RTF · 2004-07-19 06:23:53

I think it's a neat program and deserves more attention, and we haven't said anything on it here in a while, and I'm happy to babble away tonight on things barely within my comprehension, so here goes with hypothetical questions:

Would you use Arch if it made "0I" its one and only package "manager" and displaced poor pacman?

Or if it were a hybrid between pacman and 0I, where they either duplicate each other, or were each used for different types of packages?

I'm not sure 0I is a good idea for every kind of package - particularly the basic services and utilities. While a server would probably work fine by downloading the stuff it needs to run into the cache, configuring and starting everything and then never touching the system again, it "feels" like an odd usage to me, since in that situation there's hardly any difference from other methods of installation - it just seems like it'd be less permanent. Though it wouldn't be since no change would occur until you said so, just like with normal methods. Also, doing development might be...different, but probably not actually any harder. If you developed with libraries not already installed, you'd have to get them, but otherwise the only difference would be what you compile to.

But it does seem very appropriate for all the end-user, desktop-type junk. We all cycle through that stuff as our preferences change - with 0I the system can keep up with the user, no matter what happens ^.^

There would still be some reason to keep distro-specific trees around with binary packages, since for the present, having a distro is still the only way to make sure everything plays nice, and not all of the packages around would want to build a i686-only binary and host it right? The whole "GUI pacman" war would be over, since you could either run stuff directly from the filesystem with console commands or use pre-existing GUI tools to browse around.

I'm pretty happy with pacman, since the devs here do an excellent job all-around but zero install has real benefits and I like new technology so I would still advocate it

A link to remind everyone:
http://zero-install.sourceforge.net/

I feel pretty sure I said something stupid up there, oh well

mcubednyc · 2004-07-19 11:52:18

This is the part that gives me pause about Zero Install:

Is it fully working yet?
Pretty much. The main issue is how much software is distributed using this method. You can run Memo as shown above, and it will get ROX-Lib and pygtk via Zero Install. However, the other libraries are not yet in Zero Install, so you will need to install Gtk, etc, as normal for now.

Makes me wonder if it will ever be useful really, unless or until some distro adopts it as its one & only package manager and builds up a large enough repository of software to make it worthwhile for others to start using it (as either a replacement for or supplement to their own distro's package manager). As it is, I would be worried that it would add another layer of complexity -- what do I need to install with pacman?, what can I use 0I for? -- without much payoff. But I always liked the concept.

It doesn't seem like there's a lot of momentum behind it. The general trend seems to be for a certain degree of merging of existing package management systems and features -- apt4rpm, urpmi, alien (or whatever it's called), swaret, etc. Basically, it seems like the war is over and "apt-like" package management has won.

Arch Linux

#1 2004-07-19 06:23:53

Let's discuss Zero Install ^.^

#2 2004-07-19 11:52:18

Re: Let's discuss Zero Install ^.^

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