Linux and standards, can it ever really happen?
December 19th, 2006Last night I found myself in a conversation with a friend about linux. He brought up a good point and one of which im sure there is no simple answer.
Can there ever be real standards across linux. Not coding standards, or style standards…but usability standards. The more and more that linix matures, the less and less similar the different distros are.
One key point that was brought up, was installing software. For the most part, downloading and installing software is different for most linux distros. RPMs, Debs, tarballs…all different. Why? Why has there not been a standard set? Take ubuntu for example. The repositories are overflowing with software, but every now and then I see something online I want to install. Maybe it has a deb and will maybe work. Most likely, im compiling it though. Not only is this just a silly thing to expect people to do, it’s going to scare the average Joe away from the system.
I don’t want the different distros to lose their individuality, thats what makes them what they are. I do think, though, that there should be a group of people, leaders from all of the major linux players, that sets down and establishes standards. The software installation setup should be at the top of that list. In OSX or Windows, you download it, and run it…simple. That’s how it should be. Compiling your own version of every peice of software doesn’t make you cool anymore…it makes you unproductive
December 19th, 2006 at 09:43
I somewhat disagree. I think that adding the ability to use RPM files with APT and DEB files with RPM would go a long way toward solving these issues. Then, the various interfaces to these tools would only need to gain the ability to manage tarball installations as well.
In Windows (at least enterprise environments), you don’t install it anyway. A tech guy comes to your desk and does it. Whenever I have to do that, it is generally ten to thirty clicks, entering a code, and waiting twenty minutes. It isn’t quite as simple as you make it sound.
In the home, however, a Windows user just double-clicks (assuming that he or she just accepts whatever the defaults are), as you said, while a Linux or xBSD user sometimes has a similar process and sometimes has to go to the command line. I agree that there could be some improvement there, but one work-around is to only install software from your distribution’s repositories. Of course, the Windows user then has some annoying icons thrown all over the desktop, the system tray, and the quick-start bar.
December 20th, 2006 at 02:35
Sounds like you missed one of the most important announcements of the last days: there was a FSG packaging summit at the beginning of December, and Ian Murdock, the head of the FSG, posted the results. Read his blog to find the two parts of the post.
Basically - when everything turns out as planned - we will see an API to access the underlying package system to get rid of all the differences cross the distros.