Package Managers: What about 0install?

[Thomas Leonard]

On Tue, 19 Jul 2011 22:45:36 +0100, Robert Clipsham wrote:

> On 19/07/2011 21:21, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>> This has been hanging in the back of my mind and it's about dang time I
>> bring it up:
>>
>> The main reason we've been discussing the creation of a D package
>> manager is because existing package managers are highly OS-specific. So
>> what about 0install?:
>>
>> http://0install.net/
>>
>> I haven't actually used it yet, but 0install has already gone through
>> great pains to try to be cross-platform, distributed, safe, and overall
>> well-designed. And it already exists. So maybe we're needlessly
>> re-inventing the wheel here?
>>
>> Would it make sense to just use 0install as D's standard package
>> management tool? If not, would it be best to just adapt it to our
>> needs?
> 
> I don't know if it's changed, but about a year or so ago I tried using
> something that required 0install... It didn't end well at all, I seem to
> recall I had to re-image my system eventually after a few hours of
> trying to get it working :/

Hi Robert,

Could you give more information about that (e.g. what program you were 
trying to install)? 0install does not run as root, so it should be 
impossible for it to cause that kind of problem.

It should only write things in the following locations on Linux:

~/.config/0install.net/
~/.cache/0install.net/
/var/cache/0install.net/ (if system-wide sharing is enabled)

If you ever experience it doing anything else, please report the problem 
to the mailing list:

  http://0install.net/support.html#lists

Though I am sure you would find that the problem was caused by something 
else. I have never heard of 0install causing any such problems.

(and, yes, 0install should work well for D packages; I already used it 
succesfully for the Delight experimental derivative)


-- 
Dr Thomas Leonard        http://0install.net/