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In almost any system, finding out where what files belong to a package is a trivial operation for the package manager to list. The idea that a package is “inst
by Blikkentrekker 6y ago
In almost any system, finding out where what files belong to a package is a trivial operation for the package manager to list.
The idea that a package is “installed somewhere” rather than “installed” and has files that “belong to it” seems to be a Windows-ism in mentality, where it is common to start applications by navigating to the folder they are installed in, and starting an execution there from an absolute path.
Many packages' files consist of nothing more than adding more fonts to the system, it seems a bad idea to me, to have all that in a per-package folder, rather than simply in `/usr/share/fonts`, and have the package manager track what file therein belongs to what package.
- noisem4ker 6y agoThis runs somewhat counter to my practical experience. On Windows, most programs come with an installer and end up launchable with a shortcut from the start menu. On Linux, on the other hand, unless you're pulling from the package manager, then you've probably got a .tar.gz archive to manually extract somewhere. I see things have been changing only recently with the advent of Snap/Flatpak/AppImage.
- Blikkentrekker 6y agoI find that most Unix software installs via a `make install` directive, which keeps track of what files are installed where, and are then uninstalled with a `make uninstall`, if one not rely on a package manager that installs does the same internally.