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So, like, what is a package manager and what does it need to do? All the distros have one. All the lanaguages have one. Why do we have so many of these things a
by themckman 11y ago
So, like, what is a package manager and what does it need to do? All the distros have one. All the lanaguages have one. Why do we have so many of these things and is all the complexity necessary? All our configuration management tools try to abstract the differences. The list goes on on and with these things. As I start down the path of doing more and more operations/systems administration I find myself asking the question over and over: What are we doing with our lives?
- adrusi 11y agoPeople don't know what they want package mangers to do and they had much less of a clue back when the fragmentation started. So we got rpm and deb. Arch decided these were too complicated when you wanted a rolling release so they have their own package manager. Programming languages need to have their package managers work on more than just Linux, so they make their own cross platform ones, but since the devs are only thinking about their own language they don't make something cross language.
- liveoneggs 11y agopackaging software for distribution at scale is really hard and really manual
- sillygoose 11y agoExcellent questions. I bet it's largely because lots of open-source people want things exactly their way.