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I'd say we mostly suck at distributing Linux software. I'm not sure if improvements have been made recently, but I remember reading the docs on how to create .d

I'd say we mostly suck at distributing Linux software. I'm not sure if improvements have been made recently, but I remember reading the docs on how to create .deb bundles a couple years ago, and the impression I got was that it had a somewhat steep learning curve. Considering not everyone runs Debian or Ubuntu, you also either need to provide other package formats as well, a tarball with instructions or (even worse) a weird install script for them to `curl | sh`. OS X doesn't have this problem: .app bundles are just directories following a convention of where to put binaries/resources. Windows is a mess under the hood with all the registry fiddling an installer has to do, but there are dozens of existing alternatives out there already, both free and commercial which abstract that away.

lamby 11y ago
> OS X doesn't have this problem: .app bundles are just directories following a convention of where to put binaries/resources. It surely trades this with a bunch of other problems, such as excessive embedding of third-party code copies. (This is particularly problematic for video decoder code given the number of exploits in this area.)
yareally 11y ago
> ...I remember reading the docs on how to create .deb bundles a couple years ago, and the impression I got was that it had a somewhat steep learning curve Checkinstall makes building debs pretty easy if you're using make to build the app. https://www.debian-administration.org/article/147/Installing_packages_from_source_code_with_checkinstall https://www.debian-administration.org/article/147/Installing...
- brbsix 11y ago
  checkinstall installs the software in order to build the .deb, so it is sort of dangerous in that regard. It would not keep your home dir safe. I would recommend running it in a virtual machine. Building .debs is not all that difficult, just sort of an archaic and not particularly well-documented process. fpm (Ruby Gem) is worth looking into if you want a quick'n'dirty way to create packages.
dalore 11y ago
If anything distributing Linux software is leaps and bounds ahead of any of system. Just apt-get/yum or whatever your distro uses and you get the app all installed, configured, files tracked. Easily updated. And making a package from a source tarball is as easy as checkinstall.

lamby 11y ago

> OS X doesn't have this problem: .app bundles are just directories following a convention of where to put binaries/resources. It surely trades this with a bunch of other problems, such as excessive embedding of third-party code copies. (This is particularly problematic for video decoder code given the number of exploits in this area.)

yareally 11y ago

> ...I remember reading the docs on how to create .deb bundles a couple years ago, and the impression I got was that it had a somewhat steep learning curve Checkinstall makes building debs pretty easy if you're using make to build the app. https://www.debian-administration.org/article/147/Installing_packages_from_source_code_with_checkinstall https://www.debian-administration.org/article/147/Installing...

brbsix 11y ago
checkinstall installs the software in order to build the .deb, so it is sort of dangerous in that regard. It would not keep your home dir safe. I would recommend running it in a virtual machine. Building .debs is not all that difficult, just sort of an archaic and not particularly well-documented process. fpm (Ruby Gem) is worth looking into if you want a quick'n'dirty way to create packages.

dalore 11y ago

If anything distributing Linux software is leaps and bounds ahead of any of system. Just apt-get/yum or whatever your distro uses and you get the app all installed, configured, files tracked. Easily updated. And making a package from a source tarball is as easy as checkinstall.