3 ms·
Packaging for rpm or deb based distributions is a hassle. Arch’s makepkg especially and to some degree nix in comparison are incredibly easy most of the time.
by bfrog 3y ago
Packaging for rpm or deb based distributions is a hassle. Arch’s makepkg especially and to some degree nix in comparison are incredibly easy most of the time.
I still can never remember all the idiotic debhelper commands and the linter has strong ideas on how to do something.
I can’t by any means point at a url or git repo, specify a hash, and add some minimal steps and dependencies followed by a single command. That just doesn’t exist for rpm or deb, or if it does it’s very difficult to find good information on it.
Nix goes even a step further and ensures the packaging works in a nice clean environment ensuring you didn’t mistakenly use something else installed but unlisted.
Frankly I’d be surprised if flatpak or anything else is ever as easy as arch’s makepkg .
- jeena 3y agoThat is the main reason why I only package my app for Arch and nothing else. I tried for ever to create deb packages until I just gave up and package for Arch + do a AppImage (which I also dislike a lot).
- seba_dos1 3y agomakepkg is simple, but at a cost of not being nearly comparable to rpms or debs which handle a lot of stuff makepkg simply does not. With a proper deb you can do partial updates and won't end up in a state where you can't run an application because it's trying to use older ABI-incompatible versions of libraries than the ones you have presently installed. On Arch, it's very common - you're always expected to update the whole system in sync, and if you install a thing without updating the whole system first things will often go wrong. debs are complex because they're solving complex issues which makepkg does not even try to solve, otherwise it wouldn't be as easy.