[maemo-developers] [maemo-developers] Shared Libs and Application Installer

[From: Guillem Jover]

Hi,

On Thu, Dec 22, 2005 at 12:24:27PM -0200, ext Gustavo Sverzut Barbieri wrote:
> On 12/22/05, Eduardo de Barros Lima <eblima at gmail.com> wrote:
> >     A solution for this case would be create a separeted package for
> > libglade, but i think if we have to do this job for each and every lib
> > on the system, the application installer loses its meaning. An
> > alternative was to link the library statically, but as we take so much
> > care our free space, it would be a waste of it. I see libglade is
> > included in the SDK image, but it is not in the product image, so I
> > think the better solution is to include it in the newer versions.  Any
> > comments?

In the future a proper solution would be to have a real application
installer.

> That's in my list of "things to fix", together with installation on
> MMC and enable users to share applications peer-to-peer (like Palm
> users can "beam" each other).

> I need to implement my ideas and see how they fit into dpkg, probably
> they don't, but the scracth is like this:

> You can install applications and they know their dependencies. When
> you talk to the "server" (it can be an app server or other maemo user)
> you'll get the list of dependencies, you'll reply with dependencies
> you don't have, then together with the App, you'll get the
> dependencies... transparent to user. Probably you will not distribute
> an "abiword.deb" on your website but and "abiword.app", that will have
> "abiword.deb" and "libglade.deb". If you already have libglade.deb, it
> will not install it, just abiword.deb. This is a _scratch_, I'll write
> some wiki pages on it before implementing.

I don't see the point in all that complication, if you want to
distribute a .deb from your web page, the proper Debian way is through
a repo, and creating a simple one is quite easy. =)

In the case of the user, then we would only need a nice app that would
make easy the process of creating a local repo.

> This is also related to other feature I want: to beam apps between
> users. This system will need to "reconstruct" packages from installed
> files, with safety to configuration files and also remember need
> (pre/post) scripts.

If you'd like to do this, you may want to check dpkg-repack. It will
only work if you have the dpkg status files on the system. Although
ideally you'd want the original .deb from a trustworthy/original repo.

regards,
guillem