[maemo-developers] Repositories mess: conclusions and actions

[From: Niklas Höglund]

Quim Gil wrote:
> On Thu, 2007-10-25 at 20:03 +0100, ext Niklas Höglund wrote:
>> I fully agree that Zero Install is a good fit for this device.
> 
> I know nothing about this technology but let me be stupid and say that
> it looks like Zero Install is a good solution for a problem we don't
> have in the tablets.
> 
> [ snipped ]
>
> From a user point of view, "installing" means "download + press ok +
> wait a moment + go". It looks like the user experience wouldn't change,
> and in any case isn't bad at the moment (if the app works and the
> dependencies are satisfied etc).

I agree that the current scheme is pretty good. The Zero Install is also
only really suitable for applications, not system services, etc, so the
current system would have to be kept. It's probably not worth the effort
to add this as a second system, IMO, but a few of the benefits it would
have are:

1. Assuming some application menu integration was done, and that the
backup tool would back up the list of application groups, application
names and their URL:s (for 0install apps), and then restored them, they
would automatically be back after a reflash. Sure, you'd get a dialog
and have to wait a bit extra the first time you launch it again, but you
wouldn't have to hunt up the web page you installed it from. Also, if
applications are portable, you could have the same list of applications
on your tablet as on your laptop and your desktop. (Maemo-specific
unportable stuff such as HildonWindow, etc. make that a bit harder,
though, but definitely doable.)

2. I quote from http://linuxtogo.org/~florian/maemo/index.html:

" The GPE pacakges in this repository use a different versioning scheme.
" Before you install one of this packages you have to remove all
" installed GPE application and library packages from other
" repositories.

If you launch an application using one URL, it would use the libraries
from URLs in the feed file on that URL, so different incompatible
versions would not conflict. You could even run incompatible versions
from different sites at the same time. They'd be cached and run from
different directories. You'd just waste some memory and disk space, but
it would work perfectly. When you know which version is best, you could
purge the other one from the cache to save space.

3. Also:
" Note that some dependencies are in the Maemo SDK repository, so before
" you install the packages you need to add the SDK feed. There is an
" install file for this below.

Programs depending on libraries can seamlessly use them whatever URL
they come from, but I've read that the application manager will be fixed
to allow .install files to add multiple repositories.

4. The packages are easier to create then .deb packages.

-- 
Niklas