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Something I haven't seen mentioned in this article or these comments is that, as a sysadmin, I'm managing a lot of packages. It's great if you're security-cons

Something I haven't seen mentioned in this article or these comments is that, as a sysadmin, I'm managing a lot of packages. It's great if you're security-conscious enough to create the greatest install script ever, but I don't have the time to vet every install/upgrade script for every application I have to maintain. That's why we have repositories with signed packages: you trust the repository and you can then, with minimal effort, trust the packages and their updates. ...and that's another thing. A standardised mechanism to keep things up-to-date simply is a requirement of anything I'm going to allow to run on a server. I don't want to be faffing about to keep my servers secure. Package management is a solved problem by now, I don't know why people are trying to make it more complicated.

monochromatic 11y ago
Just so. I'm reminded of Raymond Chen's "what if everyone did this" thought experiments.
derefr 11y ago
Frequently, all the install script does is check what OS you're using, and run the relevant package-management incantations (e.g. for Ubuntu, [apt-key add + apt-add-repository +] apt-get update + apt-get install; for OSX, [brew tap +] brew update + brew install). If package-management systems provided a one-liner "bring in this package source, get up-to-date with manifests, and install the root/default package provided by that source" command (in Ubuntu, "ppa-install" has been suggested numerous times), you could just have a list of such commands on your program's site's Installation page, and they would all fit on a single screen. As it is, though, the stanzas and prerequisites for each OS's incantation are complex enough that it's much simpler to provide the "bash magic" version.
- jessedhillon 11y ago
  On the install page for every PPA is a 1-3 line snippet you can copy and paste which will do add-apt-repository and apt-get. It's not hard and it sounds, from reading all the pro homebrew/linuxbrew comments around here, that this is more of a case that people want to reinvent something that's not broken, and are determined to do so without learning any of the lessons from the last 30 years of package management. But hey, it prints out an emoji beer mug, so that's cool right?
  - azernik 11y ago
    No, there actually isn't. If you click a little green "read about installing" you'll get some bash snippets... which are split up into one-line-at-a-time embeds in lots of text and in any case use the placeholder "ppa:user/ppa-name" instead of substituting in the Right Thing.

monochromatic 11y ago

Just so. I'm reminded of Raymond Chen's "what if everyone did this" thought experiments.

derefr 11y ago

Frequently, all the install script does is check what OS you're using, and run the relevant package-management incantations (e.g. for Ubuntu, [apt-key add + apt-add-repository +] apt-get update + apt-get install; for OSX, [brew tap +] brew update + brew install). If package-management systems provided a one-liner "bring in this package source, get up-to-date with manifests, and install the root/default package provided by that source" command (in Ubuntu, "ppa-install" has been suggested numerous times), you could just have a list of such commands on your program's site's Installation page, and they would all fit on a single screen. As it is, though, the stanzas and prerequisites for each OS's incantation are complex enough that it's much simpler to provide the "bash magic" version.

jessedhillon 11y ago
On the install page for every PPA is a 1-3 line snippet you can copy and paste which will do add-apt-repository and apt-get. It's not hard and it sounds, from reading all the pro homebrew/linuxbrew comments around here, that this is more of a case that people want to reinvent something that's not broken, and are determined to do so without learning any of the lessons from the last 30 years of package management. But hey, it prints out an emoji beer mug, so that's cool right?
- azernik 11y ago
  No, there actually isn't. If you click a little green "read about installing" you'll get some bash snippets... which are split up into one-line-at-a-time embeds in lots of text and in any case use the placeholder "ppa:user/ppa-name" instead of substituting in the Right Thing.