MLA-Gobo wrote: > On Friday 27 July 2007 13:44, Paul Dann wrote: > >> My thoughts >> particularly lie with programs being re-locatable (ie not necessarily in >> the /Programs dir). >> > Out of curiosity, what do you see as the advantage for this? > Well, what if an unprivileged user wants to compile a program and run it? He'll need a mechanism to get that program in the path without it going in /Programs.
Also, this way you can organise your programs into different directories. For instance, you could have a directory where you store a load of beta programs that you recently compiled and are waiting to be thoroughly tested. You can run them from that directory to test them, then delete the folder without installing them in /Programs. This is especially important if there are others users (e.g. connecting via ssh) that might try to execute these beta programs. One of the most important aspect of this for me though, is that I want it to be possible to have multiple versions of the same program both installed, and *both* able to run. For example, having Firefox 1.5 and Firefox 2.0 running side by side, without any weird patches or wrappers. Now I don't think this is possible right now, but I have some interesting ideas concerning the implementation of this. I'm not an expert on all things Linux though, so there may be a million holes in my ideas. I also like the simplicity of it. I don't really like the idea of "special" files or directories. Generally speaking, the more special cases there are, the more things the user has to remember. We want to use a few general concepts that can be combined, rather than many specific ones. It's much easier for the user to remember the actions / commands for running a program and moving a file, which are general concepts, rather than a special-case installation command. >> I believe ChrootCompile produces packages, is that right? (I'm >> afraid I haven't put much time into trying it yet.) This sounds ideal >> to me. I much prefer the idea of ending up with a package, rather than >> it being installed directly like Compile, and the chroot jail has >> obvious advantages. I think it's the low coupling that appeals to me in >> this. Combining this with the above idea, it would be great to be able >> to run a program that I've just compiled, just by double-clicking on the >> package. Do you have anything along these lines planned already? >> > Say that you like the program; then what? I think one reason that > programs > are automatically installed is because if they are to be used more than once, > it makes sense to keep them in one logical place. It doesn't make sense to > keep everything on (for example) the desktop, as that has potential to become > a organizational nightmare, fast. What if you want to try out Prog-2.0 whilst needing to work a lot with Prog-1.0 (e.g. constantly opening and closing the program)? You can set Prog-2.0 compiling and continue using Prog-1.0 without worrying about the version suddenly changing when the compile ends... That's why I like the ChrootCompile technique of producing a package. You're right though, there is certainly potential for disorganisation. However, it is my belief that although an operating system should encourage good organisation, it should also give the user the flexibility to do what he wants. For example, what if we want to split our /Programs directory into subdirectories? There's no accounting for people's tastes. Personally I can get very particular about file management, and I don't like a system telling me where to put things. > After all, there's not only the application > to consider, but the libraries it depends upon as well. Where do those go? > Well I have plenty of ideas concerning actual implementation; (that is, these aren't fairy-tale ideas I came up with in 5 minutes,) but I think it would be best if I sit down and carefully write out something concrete before I go into anything this technical, or I'm likely to say something stupid that I haven't thought about carefully enough :p At this stage I'm just wanting to see the current developers' reactions to some usability ideas. > To answer one of your questions, while I'm not a developer, I don't > believe there is anything like what you suggest in the pipeline. People have > talked about ZeroInstall and Rox, but those are side projects by individuals. > OK thanks. Strange --- I'm sure I saw something about this somewhere. I wish I could just find where :D Paul
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