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Nice to see the key innovation described so well: "The system will be easy to keep up-to-date with a 'upgrading' script in the base system" I don't know that d

Nice to see the key innovation described so well: "The system will be easy to keep up-to-date with a 'upgrading' script in the base system" I don't know that dpkg was the first such upgrade system but it definitely still is one of the best. And continues to be, many later imitators are not nearly as effective. A key part of that is all the work done in packaging so that the packages are maintainable and upgradeable, of course.

tuukkah 3y ago
dpkg handles individual packages, while APT is used to handle dependencies and version upgrades. I recall using dselect as a predecessor of APT in the beginning, but I don't know if it was part of the first release. EDIT: dselect was developed at the same time as dpkg and was initially considered a part of it, so in that sense it was possible to upgrade a system by using just dpkg: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dselect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dselect
- agumonkey 3y ago
  IIRC deselect was ultra ambitious, but out of the missed target, apt emerged (sic) as a solid cornerstone.
seabass-labrax 3y ago
I gave an online talk[1] about the history and future of package management last year that you might find interesting. It was very difficult to determine exactly what was the 'first'; as is often the case with big ideas, the Linux community seemed to spontaneously decide that it was needed and came up with multiple solutions in the space of just a few years. Even the question itself is complicated, because software did not typically come with a clear 'release date', which it usually has now. Ultimately, the conclusion I drew from my research was that Bogus Linux[2] (which is still available, but no longer maintained) was the first distribution with a fully functional, system-wide binary package manager, but that Perl might have a had a functional package manager limited to Perl libraries in development or even in use by some in 1993 too. [1]: https://framatube.org/w/uubjKne6swPQpJWiQLfqxd https://framatube.org/w/uubjKne6swPQpJWiQLfqxd [2]: https://bogus.org/ https://bogus.org/
- NelsonMinar 3y ago
  Oh fascinating, thanks! Yeah CPAN dates to about 1993. CPAN in turn was based on CTAN (for TeX), which Wikipedia dates to 1991 or 1992. I used both systems in the early/mid 90s and they were not very good. CPAN in particular had a penchant for deciding to rebuilding and reinstall everything, including the Perl interpreter. I assume the general idea is older, going back to at least the 70s and minicomputers or the like.
  - oalders 3y ago
    Excellent look back at the history of CPAN here: https://github.com/neilb/history-of-cpan/blob/master/history.md https://github.com/neilb/history-of-cpan/blob/master/history...
- pabs3 3y ago
  The BOGUS Linux FTP server seems to be down, is the distro available anywhere else?
  - seabass-labrax 3y ago
    You can still get a copy from SourceForge: https://sourceforge.net/projects/oldlinuxdistributionarchive/files/bogus/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/oldlinuxdistributionarchive...
ilyt 3y ago
Certainly first that actually worked well. My current desktop was installed in 2007 and still just dist-upgraded to the current. That of course if packages are done well, but Debian organization process so far have been very good on quality. Different song with 3rd party packages of course...

tuukkah 3y ago

dpkg handles individual packages, while APT is used to handle dependencies and version upgrades. I recall using dselect as a predecessor of APT in the beginning, but I don't know if it was part of the first release. EDIT: dselect was developed at the same time as dpkg and was initially considered a part of it, so in that sense it was possible to upgrade a system by using just dpkg: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dselect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dselect

agumonkey 3y ago
IIRC deselect was ultra ambitious, but out of the missed target, apt emerged (sic) as a solid cornerstone.

seabass-labrax 3y ago

I gave an online talk[1] about the history and future of package management last year that you might find interesting. It was very difficult to determine exactly what was the 'first'; as is often the case with big ideas, the Linux community seemed to spontaneously decide that it was needed and came up with multiple solutions in the space of just a few years. Even the question itself is complicated, because software did not typically come with a clear 'release date', which it usually has now. Ultimately, the conclusion I drew from my research was that Bogus Linux[2] (which is still available, but no longer maintained) was the first distribution with a fully functional, system-wide binary package manager, but that Perl might have a had a functional package manager limited to Perl libraries in development or even in use by some in 1993 too. [1]: https://framatube.org/w/uubjKne6swPQpJWiQLfqxd https://framatube.org/w/uubjKne6swPQpJWiQLfqxd [2]: https://bogus.org/ https://bogus.org/

NelsonMinar 3y ago
Oh fascinating, thanks! Yeah CPAN dates to about 1993. CPAN in turn was based on CTAN (for TeX), which Wikipedia dates to 1991 or 1992. I used both systems in the early/mid 90s and they were not very good. CPAN in particular had a penchant for deciding to rebuilding and reinstall everything, including the Perl interpreter. I assume the general idea is older, going back to at least the 70s and minicomputers or the like.
- oalders 3y ago
  Excellent look back at the history of CPAN here: https://github.com/neilb/history-of-cpan/blob/master/history.md https://github.com/neilb/history-of-cpan/blob/master/history...
pabs3 3y ago
The BOGUS Linux FTP server seems to be down, is the distro available anywhere else?
- seabass-labrax 3y ago
  You can still get a copy from SourceForge: https://sourceforge.net/projects/oldlinuxdistributionarchive/files/bogus/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/oldlinuxdistributionarchive...

ilyt 3y ago

Certainly first that actually worked well. My current desktop was installed in 2007 and still just dist-upgraded to the current. That of course if packages are done well, but Debian organization process so far have been very good on quality. Different song with 3rd party packages of course...