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I still can't get past how bad package management is in linux. Yesterday I installed the latest version of Ubuntu and for example I wanted to put on MonoDevelop

by pixie_ 14y ago

I still can't get past how bad package management is in linux. Yesterday I installed the latest version of Ubuntu and for example I wanted to put on MonoDevelop. Looks like only 2.8 is available for Ubuntu while 3.5 is the latest. On the MonoDevelop download page there are installers for Windows, Mac, and 4 different Linux varieties. And that was only the beginning of my problems. Yesterday was not a good day.

Karunamon 14y ago
There's always a tradeoff when it comes to using your package manager vs using the native installer for an app you want. On one hand, the native installer is almost always updated sooner with the latest features and fixes. On the other hand, the packaged version is usually vetted against other packages in the system for compatibility and stability, not to mention having all of your updates be done from one place.
kappaloris 14y ago
you just need to get used to it. multiple download options are not that scary once you know what the differences are. also, to get the latest version of a software from apt you need to find a ppa that gets update more frequently than the official ones (try https://launchpad.net/~keks9n/+archive/monodevelop-latest/ https://launchpad.net/~keks9n/+archive/monodevelop-latest/ )
ghshephard 14y ago
Your issue isn't with package management which is much, much better than OS X. Try the following three very common tasks on both platforms - list all packages installed, upgrade a package, and determine which package a file belongs to. This is trivial on both the dpkg and rpm based distributions - but I don't believe there is any general way of doing this on OS X. If the App Store takes off, that might change, but right now you are out of luck. Your actual issue is that nobody has either (A) packaged the latest version for you or (B) placed the package in your (likely conservative) repository. You can always install a package without a repository, or, add additional repositories to your system.
- epistasis 14y ago
  I think the issue here is precisely the concept of package management, as well as the currently used implementations on Linux. Package management is curated by people not involved in the original source packages, and the maintainers of the original open source projects do not do releases into the package management repositories. And due to the proliferation of package management systems, choosing the right packages from a project's web page is quite confusing. In addition, rpm and dpkg have absolutely horrid command line interfaces, and the documentation is about as confusing as bash's man page. These are not trivial or easy to understand tools, necessitating further layers of abstraction like yum and apt. However, even these "simple" interfaces expose a huge amount of unnecessary complexity. If you disagree, look at the number of command line options in the rpm and dpkg utilities, and the strange and unexpected way that these command line options interact. It's not a clean system at its core. Suppose I want to do something extremely simple such as list all the packages installed on my system, how many words of the man page do I have to read and re-read before I can discover this interface? These tools share none of the simplicity of original Unix utilities, and are large monolithic beasts rather than composable units. Linux package management is truly awesome, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have faults and that it can't be improved.
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    I sincerely cannot remember the last time I had to use 'rpm'. I can't imagine Debian is any different.
    - epistasis 14y ago
      apt-* and yum are only minorly better than rpm and dpkg, and are still ridiculously over-complicated. The proliferation of extra tools to deal with package management are a testament to the number of people that are unhappy with the current options.
      - jlgreco 14y ago
        I guess I really don't feel you. 'yum localinstall' is absurdly simple as far as I am concerned, and the standard 'yum install' is obviously even simpler. I am not even aware of any additional arguments localinstall takes. If there are any, I have never used them. Edit: I just checked the manpage, and it seems 'localinstall' is deprecated. Simply using 'install' now does what it used to, though 'localinstall' still works for backwards compatibility. It really could not become any simpler. Complaining that 'rpm' is complicated is like using git without the porcelain then complaining that it is complicated.
sp332 14y ago
3.0.3.5 is the latest. 3.0 only came out about a month ago so it's not too surprising that it hasn't made it to the official Ubuntu repos yet. 2.8 just came out 4 months ago so it's not exactly old.

by pixie_ 14y ago

Karunamon 14y ago

There's always a tradeoff when it comes to using your package manager vs using the native installer for an app you want. On one hand, the native installer is almost always updated sooner with the latest features and fixes. On the other hand, the packaged version is usually vetted against other packages in the system for compatibility and stability, not to mention having all of your updates be done from one place.

kappaloris 14y ago

you just need to get used to it. multiple download options are not that scary once you know what the differences are. also, to get the latest version of a software from apt you need to find a ppa that gets update more frequently than the official ones (try https://launchpad.net/~keks9n/+archive/monodevelop-latest/ https://launchpad.net/~keks9n/+archive/monodevelop-latest/ )

ghshephard 14y ago

Your issue isn't with package management which is much, much better than OS X. Try the following three very common tasks on both platforms - list all packages installed, upgrade a package, and determine which package a file belongs to. This is trivial on both the dpkg and rpm based distributions - but I don't believe there is any general way of doing this on OS X. If the App Store takes off, that might change, but right now you are out of luck. Your actual issue is that nobody has either (A) packaged the latest version for you or (B) placed the package in your (likely conservative) repository. You can always install a package without a repository, or, add additional repositories to your system.

epistasis 14y ago
I think the issue here is precisely the concept of package management, as well as the currently used implementations on Linux. Package management is curated by people not involved in the original source packages, and the maintainers of the original open source projects do not do releases into the package management repositories. And due to the proliferation of package management systems, choosing the right packages from a project's web page is quite confusing. In addition, rpm and dpkg have absolutely horrid command line interfaces, and the documentation is about as confusing as bash's man page. These are not trivial or easy to understand tools, necessitating further layers of abstraction like yum and apt. However, even these "simple" interfaces expose a huge amount of unnecessary complexity. If you disagree, look at the number of command line options in the rpm and dpkg utilities, and the strange and unexpected way that these command line options interact. It's not a clean system at its core. Suppose I want to do something extremely simple such as list all the packages installed on my system, how many words of the man page do I have to read and re-read before I can discover this interface? These tools share none of the simplicity of original Unix utilities, and are large monolithic beasts rather than composable units. Linux package management is truly awesome, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have faults and that it can't be improved.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  I sincerely cannot remember the last time I had to use 'rpm'. I can't imagine Debian is any different.
  - epistasis 14y ago
    apt-* and yum are only minorly better than rpm and dpkg, and are still ridiculously over-complicated. The proliferation of extra tools to deal with package management are a testament to the number of people that are unhappy with the current options.
    - jlgreco 14y ago
      I guess I really don't feel you. 'yum localinstall' is absurdly simple as far as I am concerned, and the standard 'yum install' is obviously even simpler. I am not even aware of any additional arguments localinstall takes. If there are any, I have never used them. Edit: I just checked the manpage, and it seems 'localinstall' is deprecated. Simply using 'install' now does what it used to, though 'localinstall' still works for backwards compatibility. It really could not become any simpler. Complaining that 'rpm' is complicated is like using git without the porcelain then complaining that it is complicated.

sp332 14y ago

3.0.3.5 is the latest. 3.0 only came out about a month ago so it's not too surprising that it hasn't made it to the official Ubuntu repos yet. 2.8 just came out 4 months ago so it's not exactly old.