Hello all,

At this moment there is no universal installsystem and packageformat for distributions. Ubuntu goes with apt, openSUSE goes with zypper and so on. This is the reason we see on many linuxprogramm websites texts like:

Install in Ubuntu:
sudo apt-get install amarok

Install in openSUSE:
sudo zypper install amarok

Install Fedora:
sudo yum install amarok

For experienced users, this is no problem. They open console and copy/paste the line matching their distribution. For unexperienced users this looks like a punchline from a mad scientist.

openSUSE uses a OneClick-install already but it is distribution bound and very advanced. I do not aim to duplicate something like that (at this moment). Too much work for now and a simpeler solution would do for standard packages.

Question: Can we create an simple universal installer that uses a GUI to be used by websites?

It should be able to:
- install applications that can be retrieved from the standard repo's for a distribution.
- handle an Install button-file from a website (metapackage.uin?)
- tell the user if the installation was succesfull

It does not (a least for this moment) have to be able to
- install packages from external repositories (cause of dependency trouble)
- install the latest beta of [xyz] (cause of dependency trouble)

If we manage to built it, we make the life of many newbies much easier.

Example metapackage.uin
[name]Amarok[/name]
[installname]
[opensuse]kde4-amarok[/opensuse]
[debian]amarok[/debian]
[/installname]

Use case Mandy (uses Debian):
1.) Mandy goes to the Amarok page at kde.org
2.) Mandy clicks on the Install Amarok button
3.) Uninstaller appears asking for the administrator password
4.) Mandy fills in the administrator password
5.) Uninstall performs "apt-get install amarok"
6.) Uninstall reports succes
Result: Amarok installed

Use case Mike (uses openSUSE):
1.) Mandy goes to the Amarok page at kde.org
2.) Mandy clicks on the Install Amarok button
3.) Uninstaller appears asking for the administrator password
4.) Mandy fills in the administrator password
5.) Uninstall performs "zypper install kde4-amarok"
6.) Uninstall reports succes
Result: Amarok installed

Who's up?!

Regards,
Bart Otten & neverendingo (www-kde)

ps. Just to be sure.....Uninstaller is only a dev-title

BartOtten wrote:ps. Just to be sure.....Uninstaller is only a dev-title

and not the best one at that, since it is used to install not uninstall programs

Isn't PackageKit supposed to solve this problem - unified cross-distribution API for package management? Well, I guess PackageKit handles the unifying of the interface between distributions, but doesn't have any website integration - "click link to install" features, yet. Though I'd imagine it should be easy enough to implement (similar to suse's one-click install and apt-url on apt-based systems)

This is really bad idea, for few reasons. Many attempts has been made to unify software installation. Have you ever seen autopackage package or zeroinstall feed? Probably not. Then, placing packages on a website - easily installable - would cause bad effect. Users would install bleeding edge packages stright from developer's websites, packages would miss quality assurance from linux distribution teams. Concluding: there is no unified installation system for distributions because it is really not needed. And in many cases it is even unwanted.

Wizard wrote:Users would install bleeding edge packages stright from developer's websites, packages would miss quality assurance from linux distribution teams. Concluding: there is no unified installation system for distributions because it is really not needed. And in many cases it is even unwanted.

The idea isn't to install packages from the website, but to provide a link that asks the user's package manager to install an application (along with its dependencies). Here's an example (for Ubuntu): http://ninite.com/linux/

I agree with airdrik that the ideal solution would be to use PackageKit instead of reinventing the wheel. According to http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/ ... wserPlugin, "PackageKit now installs a browser plugin handler so that web pages can install software in a secure environment."

So I have to disagree again. From what I've seen over the Internet, most of situations BartOtten described are are forum entries and articles written by newbies. "I had such problem and I did this and that to solve it, works for me". Also, it isn't secure at all. Even if it would check and disallow updating or removing some packages it still allows to cause big mess. I think it's better to make new users aware of what their doing (by providing good documentation and tutorials for package management) instead of add additional utilities which will make them even more confused.

We found out already that PackageKit was part of our solution so we contacted the developer for some info. I have little tike so I am not gonna discuss the "easy or messy" right now, but maybe will comment on that later.

Tnx for the suggestions!

Package is the WHOLE solution: http://www.packagekit.org/pk-faq.html#catalogs
I already tested it and it works fine. Opera, Chrome and IE needs a handler, but will handle that before kde.org-Neverland is launched.