6 ms·

GNU Stow 2.1.0 released

67 points by lelf 15y ago

antifuchs 15y ago
This is pretty great. Stow (plus git) is how I'm managing the config files for multiple hosts in my respective home dirs, and the conflict resolution switches are going to be a huge help.
gujk 15y ago
/etc/alternatives competitor?
gwern 15y ago
> This is the first official release of Stow since January 2002 Wait, is this right? The last official release was more than 9 years ago?
- yew 15y ago
  That would appear to be correct. See http://www.gnu.org/s/stow http://www.gnu.org/s/stow, under "Latest news."
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- LukeShu 15y ago
  Yes, that is right. That's why it's a big deal, and worthy of HN. Now, the situation would be better if 2.0.x had been released. Troy Will, the maintainer, had put stow into maintenance mode, and basically stopped after 1.3.3. Kahlil Hodgson did a major rewrite that became Stow 2. The both contributed to it a bit, getting us to 2.0.2. Stow 2.0.2 was considered stable, and though it could be downloaded from Savannah, Troy felt uncomfortable releasing it officially because he was unfamiliar with the code and felt he couldn't maintain it, or address any problems found. Kahlil wasn't willing to step up as maintainer. So, 2.1.x marks Adam Spiers becoming involved in the project. Here is the thread that sparked this: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/stow-devel/2011-11/msg00000.html https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/stow-devel/2011-11/msg000... (I am the Luke Shumaker quoted in the beginning of the thread. I had an email exchange with Troy about this back in February, but it happened off-list)
jevinskie 15y ago
I've just been installing applications into ~/base/app_name/app_version using the configure script's --prefix option. Can a Stow user tell me how it is an improvement over my setup?
- stewbrew 15y ago
  The idea is to simulate that apps are installed in usual places (e.g. /usr/local/).
- __david__ 15y ago
  How do you get at the bin directories? I'm assuming you just add them to your path... Stow basically starts out similarly to what you are doing now--you configure and install to ~/base/stow/xxxx (I usually use app_name-app_version for xxxx but there's no rule). Then you use stow to create a symlink tree in ~/base/{bin,lib,share,etc...}. That way the PATH (and MANPATH, INFOPATH, PERL5LIB, etc.) doesn't have to keep growing for each new app you install. I think that is a nice improvement. Uninstalling (stow -D) runs through the symlink tree and removes anything from that package.
  - jevinskie 15y ago
    Thank you very much, I see the advantage now. Handling PATH, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, and the like has been the most annoying part of my setup. It is great to see that Stow can help me out!
- Tobu 15y ago
  That's basically it. I install to ~/local/stow/$pkgname , and run stow -d ~/local/stow $pkgname. Uninstalling is done with rm -rf, upgrading is done by uninstalling then installing. The only $PATH addition is ~/local/bin. A $pkgname-$version scheme might be interesting as well, if I wanted to keep older versions around.
stewbrew 15y ago
Does it still link to subdirectories instead of files? That was the reason why I switched to graft long ago.
gourneau 15y ago
I am in the process of getting a plugin installation system working, _right now_. I was going to try to use ZeroInstall. Y'all think Stow is worth learning about. I like ZeroInstall because it should take care of package dependencies.
- gourneau 15y ago
  I want a 'stow-store'. Something like homebrew for linux. Also the formulas would be written with Python or JSON. I also long for a deb to stow converted, and Python Package installs.
planckscnst 15y ago
This sounds like it has similar goals to the Nix package manager. http://nixos.org/nix/ http://nixos.org/nix/

67 points by lelf 15y ago

This is pretty great. Stow (plus git) is how I'm managing the config files for multiple hosts in my respective home dirs, and the conflict resolution switches are going to be a huge help.

gujk 15y ago

/etc/alternatives competitor?

gwern 15y ago

> This is the first official release of Stow since January 2002 Wait, is this right? The last official release was more than 9 years ago?

yew 15y ago
That would appear to be correct. See http://www.gnu.org/s/stow http://www.gnu.org/s/stow, under "Latest news."
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
LukeShu 15y ago
Yes, that is right. That's why it's a big deal, and worthy of HN. Now, the situation would be better if 2.0.x had been released. Troy Will, the maintainer, had put stow into maintenance mode, and basically stopped after 1.3.3. Kahlil Hodgson did a major rewrite that became Stow 2. The both contributed to it a bit, getting us to 2.0.2. Stow 2.0.2 was considered stable, and though it could be downloaded from Savannah, Troy felt uncomfortable releasing it officially because he was unfamiliar with the code and felt he couldn't maintain it, or address any problems found. Kahlil wasn't willing to step up as maintainer. So, 2.1.x marks Adam Spiers becoming involved in the project. Here is the thread that sparked this: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/stow-devel/2011-11/msg00000.html https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/stow-devel/2011-11/msg000... (I am the Luke Shumaker quoted in the beginning of the thread. I had an email exchange with Troy about this back in February, but it happened off-list)

jevinskie 15y ago

I've just been installing applications into ~/base/app_name/app_version using the configure script's --prefix option. Can a Stow user tell me how it is an improvement over my setup?

stewbrew 15y ago
The idea is to simulate that apps are installed in usual places (e.g. /usr/local/).
__david__ 15y ago
How do you get at the bin directories? I'm assuming you just add them to your path... Stow basically starts out similarly to what you are doing now--you configure and install to ~/base/stow/xxxx (I usually use app_name-app_version for xxxx but there's no rule). Then you use stow to create a symlink tree in ~/base/{bin,lib,share,etc...}. That way the PATH (and MANPATH, INFOPATH, PERL5LIB, etc.) doesn't have to keep growing for each new app you install. I think that is a nice improvement. Uninstalling (stow -D) runs through the symlink tree and removes anything from that package.
- jevinskie 15y ago
  Thank you very much, I see the advantage now. Handling PATH, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, and the like has been the most annoying part of my setup. It is great to see that Stow can help me out!
Tobu 15y ago
That's basically it. I install to ~/local/stow/$pkgname , and run stow -d ~/local/stow $pkgname. Uninstalling is done with rm -rf, upgrading is done by uninstalling then installing. The only $PATH addition is ~/local/bin. A $pkgname-$version scheme might be interesting as well, if I wanted to keep older versions around.

stewbrew 15y ago

Does it still link to subdirectories instead of files? That was the reason why I switched to graft long ago.

gourneau 15y ago

I am in the process of getting a plugin installation system working, _right now_. I was going to try to use ZeroInstall. Y'all think Stow is worth learning about. I like ZeroInstall because it should take care of package dependencies.

gourneau 15y ago
I want a 'stow-store'. Something like homebrew for linux. Also the formulas would be written with Python or JSON. I also long for a deb to stow converted, and Python Package installs.

planckscnst 15y ago

This sounds like it has similar goals to the Nix package manager. http://nixos.org/nix/ http://nixos.org/nix/