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> I don't think we're disagreeing on the problem with Linux Desktop here. The whole system is a patchwork of projects by different groups with disparate goals.

> I don't think we're disagreeing on the problem with Linux Desktop here. The whole system is a patchwork of projects by different groups with disparate goals. Indeed we agree on that. > See: any question on a Linux Desktop forum where the user wanted to do something out of the ordinary. That is a community problem, not a technical problem then. We should fix those, too. > onto a USB drive so you can install them on a computer that doesn't have the internet. The developers never considered the possibility that someone would want to download software for a different computer. Haiku's `pkgman` doesn't have this feature built-in yet, but it would be easy enough to add. Already you can just copy `hpkg` files out of /system/packages to anywhere you want, and then run `pkgman install <files>` to install those HPKGs elsewhere (assuming you grabbed all the right ones.) Actually, since you can already dump package info (including dependencies) using `pkgman`, writing a script to do this would be pretty easy. It looks like there's a way to do this in apt, anyway: https://stackoverflow.com/a/27469489 https://stackoverflow.com/a/27469489 > After all, if I'm going to jump through those hoops I may as well do it on an OS with better hardware and software support. If that's all you want, then sure, go ahead. Again, this wasn't some integral part of Haiku's identity in our minds.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
I'm aware of the script for apt, actually, precisely because I needed to do this once. That's a hack though, apt clearly wasn't built with the idea that anyone might ever want to do something with packages other than install them on their local system. It's fine that Haiku's goals and mine don't align, really it is. I'm just not going to go out of my way to use it because I don't feel it offers advantages that outweigh the disadvantages.
- waddlesplash 8y ago
  "It wasn't built with the idea", but yet you can do that, because of the UNIX philosophy of chaining commands together. So I think if you're calling it a "hack", then you fundamentally disagree with the UNIX philosophy. I mean, I have my issues with it, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that kind of command chaining is a "hack".
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
    > "It wasn't built with the idea", but yet you can do that, because of the UNIX philosophy of chaining commands together. So I think if you're calling it a "hack", then you fundamentally disagree with the UNIX philosophy. I disagree with the fact that the unix philosophy hasn't been updated since the 70s and text parsing is still considered the height of chianing applications together. I call it a hack because that's exactly what it is.
- probonopd 8y ago
  There's also this artificial distinction between the uninstalled and the installed form of the same software. Once you have installed it, it is married into a system that makes it very hard to get it out of the running system again and transfer it to another system (unless you kept the debs or hope that they are still online in some repo). A better system is one in which the archive/installer and the installed instance of a software is one and the same. Such as a Mac .app bundle or an AppImage for Linux.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago

I'm aware of the script for apt, actually, precisely because I needed to do this once. That's a hack though, apt clearly wasn't built with the idea that anyone might ever want to do something with packages other than install them on their local system. It's fine that Haiku's goals and mine don't align, really it is. I'm just not going to go out of my way to use it because I don't feel it offers advantages that outweigh the disadvantages.

waddlesplash 8y ago
"It wasn't built with the idea", but yet you can do that, because of the UNIX philosophy of chaining commands together. So I think if you're calling it a "hack", then you fundamentally disagree with the UNIX philosophy. I mean, I have my issues with it, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that kind of command chaining is a "hack".
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
  > "It wasn't built with the idea", but yet you can do that, because of the UNIX philosophy of chaining commands together. So I think if you're calling it a "hack", then you fundamentally disagree with the UNIX philosophy. I disagree with the fact that the unix philosophy hasn't been updated since the 70s and text parsing is still considered the height of chianing applications together. I call it a hack because that's exactly what it is.
probonopd 8y ago
There's also this artificial distinction between the uninstalled and the installed form of the same software. Once you have installed it, it is married into a system that makes it very hard to get it out of the running system again and transfer it to another system (unless you kept the debs or hope that they are still online in some repo). A better system is one in which the archive/installer and the installed instance of a software is one and the same. Such as a Mac .app bundle or an AppImage for Linux.