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So nearly 5 years later, is any of this any better? Also, why haven't Linux vendors standardized on a single package manager that is the default for ALL Linux d

So nearly 5 years later, is any of this any better? Also, why haven't Linux vendors standardized on a single package manager that is the default for ALL Linux distros? This seems like the equivalent hell that npm gives to NodeJS.

mappu 7y ago
> why haven't Linux vendors standardized on a single package manager that is the default for ALL Linux distros? The two distro package managers that "matter" (apt and rpm) are similar enough that this isn't a problem in practice. You can have fpm spit out a deb or rpm or arch pkg with just one flag change, and host it on your own website. The real differences aren't just mechanical packaging differences, but more a question of philosophies, there are a lot of differences in upstream distro packaging policies themselves. Debian isn't going to let you upload it directly unless it is a good citizen on their distro, stays up-to-date with their versions of all dependencies (so that you only end up with one python, libjpeg etc on your system) and is certifiably free software down to the bones. Whereas Arch will take literally anything in the AUR, and the fast way into CentOS is to be employed by RH (paraphrasing). (I tried to package a certain app in RPM, but it turns out that OpenSuSE and CentOS have different names for the tzdata package, and until very recently rpm didn't even have a system for specifying alternate dependencies.)