Open Ballot: do we need a standard package format?

Abolutely

geekyBodhi - May 4, 2009 @ 10:31am

Not only will it be simpler for users, it'll also save app developers and packagers loads of time.

--
Mayank Sharma
geekybodhi.net

Universal package management

Likeslinux (not verified) - May 4, 2009 @ 10:34am

I have had an idea for Universal package management for some time, just like the way that fluxbuntu and other ubuntu minis can do apt-get install ubuntu and you have a complete ubuntu distro, imaging if you could do from ubuntu: apt-get install open-suse, well that is probably a bit OTT and there would have to be different versions of each package for each distro but I think one of the highlites of Linux and one of its advantages is that it has a great way of installing and removing apps, and it is needed because it has doesn't have a standard libraries installed and because of its fast development pace. I have heard that some people think that there are too many distros and I think having a universal package management tool will bring them all together, and it will be easier to make your own distro, you can just get a linux kernel iso loop mount it and just apt-get install the packages you want and edit a couple of configs, just the same way you can customise Ubuntu like was it Mike did on the LXF DVD's.

YES

theguywholikeslinux - May 4, 2009 @ 10:42am

Come on, this is what everybody has been waiting for!

No

Deon Kok (not verified) - May 4, 2009 @ 10:57am

If you tried to unify it the different groups will probably want to preserve their own code. So a compromise will be reached where they will set up a common package standard group with some funding. The new way (DREM?) will be under development until they put out code that is slow, a bit less of a mess and as a bonus unstable as well. Debian will schedule it for inclusion just after ext3 runs out of dates. The rest will ignore it till it goes away.

Would it make any difference?

Martin from Sweden (not verified) - May 4, 2009 @ 11:07am

In a discussion regarding this and other downsides to Linux, it was pointed out that it doesn't matter which package format is used. You can always use 'alien' as the first poster noted, but the real problem is the underlying architecture of each distribution.

I think the solution is things like Linux Standard Base and then a user friendly front end to 'alien', as well as using solution like PackageKit besides the distributions other packaging tools.

No

David Petticrew (not verified) - May 4, 2009 @ 11:44am

There's really not much point. Mandrake, Red Hat and SuSE all use RPM but you can't install a Mandrake RPM on SuSE system. The only advantage of using 1 package management system is so you can package software once and have it install on any system, take that away and what's the point.

No

Stephen Ward (not verified) - May 4, 2009 @ 11:50am

I would say no, mainly because I don't think it would make much difference. Take a look at Skype's download page for linux for example, 8 different packages labeled for different distros, multiple debs, rpms and a tarball. Are there differences between the way different distros handle the same package type? I don't know enough to say but i would assume it's different enough for skype to have different files.

Perhaps if Ubuntu hadn't come along and boosted the .deb file's usage then rpm would have become the standard by default, it being used by the biggest distros.

No

Joakim Ganse (not verified) - May 4, 2009 @ 12:11pm

It would be insane to standardise on one format.
We need two formats to compete, otherwhise no or little progress will be made. Look at KDE and GNOME none of them would be what they are without the other.
Competition is good.
What would be better id to have the fsh standard so good it woulf be possible to install any rpm on any rpm based system and of cause the same goes for .deb. It would also be good with a simple way of translating formats.

Yes!

Andrew From New York (not verified) - May 4, 2009 @ 12:26pm

I think the whole system needs to be revamped. Not only do I think we need to standardize on a single system, but I don't think the system that we need to standardize on exists yet. My whole complaint can be summed up in one sentence.. "If you used it to develop the program...INCLUDE IT IN THE PACKAGE!!" We can make it smart enough to not download things you don't need, but everything the program needs to compiler or run should be available from the same source as the original package. I have problems sometimes getting the packages and libraries I need to install a program and I'm a programmer and daily Linux user. The average user would just have to give up most of the time and not use the program. I use Fedora 10 so it's not like I don't have a wealth of packages and libraries available in the package manager either. This doesn't happen in other parts of our lives, you don't goto the store and buy the frame for your refrigerator and hope that your kitchen has the missing pieces.

Standardizing is a good thing. Look at C++ for example. I'm sure people were irritated when their features or input weren't including in the standard but nobody wanted to go on letting the compiler companies decide what was allowed and not. If we standardized today nobody would remember in 10 years and developers and users alike would be the happier for it.

No...but

techandlife (not verified) - May 4, 2009 @ 12:36pm

No I don't think we need a standard Linux package. Diversity is a good thing.
However, I do think that it's important to point new users to one particular distro to start on. Ubuntu seems to be the frontrunner given its popularity on netbooks and its apparent ease of installation and use.
After they've mastered that they can move on to another distro if they wish.

I think so

Cristiano Moraes (not verified) - May 4, 2009 @ 12:37pm

Sorry... I forgot to put my name.

Yes! ... well sorta...

@cmemery (not verified) - May 4, 2009 @ 12:37pm

I understand the naysayers perspective, but personally after using ubuntu for a couple years ( and debian before that ) I am spoiled by the ease of apt-get. It has made it relatively impossible for most other distros to steal my heart.

HOWEVER, I agree that enforcing some sort of standard is against the very spirit of what Linux is... SO... I'd propose a compromise:

Create a standard USER INTERFACE for package installation: synaptic, whatever. Develop the code behind to support multiple backend repository systems. YES, this would be a lot of work (though not necessarily all features would need to be represented for all backends).

The result being a standard packaging system (as far as the desktop users go anyway) while terminal users still have the full functionality of their preferred system.

Yes but...

TaoistTotty (not verified) - May 4, 2009 @ 1:00pm

I would say yes, it would offer the benefit to a new user to not have to worry about file types etc.

But I can see the problem of having the different files for different distro's, so how about a compromise?

A single file format, but one that can be limited to specific distributions (e.g. .xxx file (new user knows this is for linux) but only for Ubuntu and Suse (warning given by company supplying).

Yes please.

Istvan (not verified) - May 4, 2009 @ 1:07pm

Yes and it should be ended with .EXE. In that case every user would immediately know what is it for.

No

sundaraz - May 4, 2009 @ 1:17pm

As long as the distros have good tools to install and update, I don't see any reason for conforming to one standard.

YES

F (not verified) - May 4, 2009 @ 1:22pm

Common guys, nobody want to limit your freedom of choice...
But standardization is really good thing.
For example, look at the manufacturing or all those ISO standards or something...

Absolutely!

Dan Dart (not verified) - May 4, 2009 @ 1:27pm

3rd parties won't probably bother if they can't just do one for all, it takes too much effort.
They would be more likely to do it if they could just make a Linux package and not worry about it. It would be handy if there were universal repos about as well so people could just go and get what they wanted without having to compile from source, as there are still things there. If one wanted to make a package they would just submit it to the server and it would package it nicely along with static format for 3rd parties dependencies removal (phew) and people to be able to download without downloading anything else! Think how much less of a hassle that would be! I want the linux package. OK. Here you are. See? Done. And it installs quick too, taking the best bits from yum and rpm and still having the freedom to use whatever frontend you wish! Everybody wins!

Yes.

Rob Taylor (not verified) - May 4, 2009 @ 1:53pm

Every now and again this question pops up. Whatever happened to autopackage? I think this is the weakest area of linux at the moment, having to hunt round for deb or rpm's or face the prospect of compiling from source (what a pain!). With Ubuntu becoming the distro of choice for most newcomers, and with so many distros being based on debian/ubuntu, I think things will standardise on deb's anyway.

is it biased to no?

theguywholikeslinux - May 4, 2009 @ 2:21pm

I think i am seeing more noes than yeses :(
So I am going to try to take as much of both sides of the argument into the equation:

Lots of people seem to say that it will force them down one route and I think even if it is universal there will still be different versions of software for each distro with different patches, i.e. the packages will still not be cross compatible so there will still be more than one way to go. It might save developers time if they make a 'base' package and then distro people add the patches themselves, but otherwise there are already package making tools

If this is going to happen it will take some changing of code, but that is inevitable, we are doing it all the time, if we just stay the same way Linux will never get any better. If we can use alien to convert packages already then there is already some cross compatibility and all of the packages in the package servers won't go to wast, what is to say that you can't have two package managers on one distro?

There are advantages to both RPM and DEB but if we make a new package manager it will probably have to be just new code and then it can sit alongside older package managers until they go out of date, it will also prevent RPM vs. DEP wars etc.

It also doesn't have to be a 'file format' it can just be a set of guide lines, I think if Linux is going to go mainstream then what we need most is a set of standards, it doesn't matter how you implement them there for giving diversity, but it stops incompatibility and allows lost of distros, big and small, to co-exist with out the best one with all the features taking the market.

I think having package management is a really good way of installing software, far superior to windows' go to website > download app > follow wizard > install > run. On Linux it is Install > run and weather we have a standard package management system or not (you can probably tell I want one) We should be proud of the system we have in place already!

No. There's just no point in

Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - May 4, 2009 @ 2:49pm

No. There's just no point in that.

The difference between package managers (for newbies) could easily be eliminated by a standard GUI front-end.

But the difference between distros - the ones preventing Mandrake RPM from installing successfully on SuSE, just like David Petticrew said - will not go away easily, unless we enforce a strict compatibility...

Tarballs, .deb and .rpm are standards de-facto, and it will take a really good new format and tools to overcome that. And it will take lots of time to develop and properly debug it all - a few years at least. Is this really worth such an effort?

YES! And include BSD.

Nacndue (not verified) - May 4, 2009 @ 3:29pm

Don't curse me! I think we would benefit from an universal package format and so would distro's. Main reason I don't use some distro's is the ease of package installation and dependency issues. IMHO this would help people break the Windows addiction.

Undecided

Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - May 4, 2009 @ 3:34pm

Each manager seems to have its fans and detractors. How about a command-line "wrapper" script so that no matter what distro you were in you'd type

package install name_of_package

with the script taking care of executing apt-get/yum/rpm/whatever

I'm sure that with a little thought it could be arranged so that the default package manager for a particular system would be specified in a .ini file somewhere. This file could then be referred to by any gui interface.

Or has this been done already?

NO

Michael Schemer (not verified) - May 4, 2009 @ 4:20pm

We have packagekit now, so it does not matter the package format.

Linux is about choice, if you find that someone does something better than another group, you can adopt this. If you find Apt with Debian to be better than YUM with RPMs, then you should be able to choose.

NO. That makes things easier

DaveS (not verified) - May 4, 2009 @ 4:29pm

NO. That makes things easier for everyday users, and makes geeks seem less clever. That would NEVER do!

If so...

Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - May 4, 2009 @ 6:01pm

If so, then my vote is for .deb.

No. Choice of RPM or DEB is

Anonymous Penguin - May 4, 2009 @ 6:26pm

No. Choice of RPM or DEB is already pretty good.

No

Tommy Raz (not verified) - May 4, 2009 @ 6:54pm

Seems to me there are already de-facto standards. If 1 proves superior, it will take over.

Until then, developers should use a tool that generates all the different package formats from their project. If such a tool doesn't exist, it seems like a worthwhile thing to create. I don't know, I'm just a user.

Maybe

Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - May 4, 2009 @ 7:57pm

If we did, I'd personally prefer pacman, Archlinux's package manager. It's simple and fast, and the makepkg system is very valuable and so is AUR.

Go mandrake

Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - May 4, 2009 @ 8:47pm

Yay for mandrake

Yes, but it ain't going to happen

Chris (not verified) - May 4, 2009 @ 9:28pm

One package system would be great for ease of use, BUT, that will never happen. If it does, some people will find system x inferior for feature y, and concequently fork or start afresh, and then you are back to the beggining.

No and YES

Fri13 (not verified) - May 4, 2009 @ 10:43pm

Short answer: We ALREADY have standard package format and it is RPM!.

RPM was choosed because better features for the LSB standard. Debian people just can not stand that their package format wasn't choosed and they try to bash RPM again spreading FUD etc.

But we do not need one package manager, one package naming/package format and styles. We need multiple.

Examples. We can have distributions what offers packages what follows upstream source package naming and structure. But we have distributions what slice those packages or joins them together, like Gentoo. All for different purposes and we just can not have one multi-format package. If you do not like that fact, then go back to Windows or Mac OS X.

We have coming one GUI for package managers. We can use smart side by side with other package manager to get one UI. There is one UI for all distributions and all desktop environments and windowmanagers.

No

Hal (not verified) - May 5, 2009 @ 3:00am

I realize that according to the LSB, RPM was supposed to be the standard, but as several people have already stated, Fedora, Mandriva and SUSE rpm's will not install in each others distros. This is the reason I dropped those distros to use deb files. I find that, at present, apt-get seems to take care of dependencies better. However, that may change in the future. I may have moved back to Windows due to frustration 3 or 4 years ago if I hadn't had another package management system to try out. If people are sure that there should only be one package system, one desktop, etc. there is a system out there for them. It's called Microsoft Windows,

Resounding YES

ARM-C - May 5, 2009 @ 4:03am

OK, My belief is absolutely YES and that is based upon achieving a greater acceptance of Linux across the board and specifically in desktop users.

I have not read every post above, so forgive me if I repeat some things.

a. Developing packages for multiple package systems is an extremely time consuming thing. In many cases, the person doing the package maintenance is a VERY GOOD PROGRAMMER. Now, if that person was able to spend his time in OSS development instead of package management, perhaps Linux wouldn't still be behind in some key applications such as Audio Development, Video Development, and "PhotoShop" Equivalents... blah blah blah.

b. We need some commercial applications IOT make the platform truly accepted. A standard package format would increase the commercial support for linux and simplify the deployment of their software.

c. Standard packages would reduce the "confounding" view that many NEW USERS are faced with when having to find packages outside of their package manager -- thus increase the user satisfaction.

d. We would be just that much closer to "it just works" across the board.

Well, those are enough reasons. Package management is a very effective aspect of Linux. I personally hate RPM due to the time it takes and I seam to have much more dependency hell with RPM than other package formats.

Regardless of the fact that RPM is the "Official Linux" format for packages, the industry is quickly standardizing on DEB for the sole reason of popularity of Ubuntu. Even if we don't "Standardize", the community will move toward a "majority" standard, which in my opinion, we already have. As a result, we will see increasingly applications released in .deb only due to the amount of time it requires to make packages. Other distros will either have to resort to conversion or build their own.

It seams that one of the key differences between distributions is the package manager. Lets get by the "turf wars" and move on to bigger and better things on ONE STANDARD (or at least majority standard) so that our resources can be applied in more productive ways to increase / expand the great software that is available as OSS.

As for my vote, it is Debian format. Why? because it is fast and my time is important to me. Sure, it may be a mess in some ways, but if we settle on one standard and improve the existing "majority" system, we would all be better off.

No

Dave from Texas (not verified) - May 5, 2009 @ 5:05am

No.

It isn't the format which confuses people, it's the software that works with the format. There already are several starts on software which work with different formats; this process should work toward convergance so that the actual package format is invisible to everybody but developers. That also allows each package format to retain its unique strengths.

Yes

iuselinux.com (not verified) - May 5, 2009 @ 5:37am

It will definitely bump-up the ease-of-use meter for end-users. Imagine... freely available Linux software that is distro-agnostic!

No

Graeme (not verified) - May 5, 2009 @ 8:15am

I dont think we should force anyone to give up rpm or deb.
However, we could make the programmers easier by providing
a script that takes their completed code, and produces the
required packages automatically. This might be the purpose
of alien.

YES

Anonymous Penguin says hell yes! (not verified) - May 5, 2009 @ 9:14am

i can't find it cons

No. because it'll get

Anonymous (not verified) - May 5, 2009 @ 10:10am

No. because it'll get changed anyway. The problem with standards is that everyone else's is better than the original so when you spec a standard everyone adds to it, changes it, whatever and you end up with hundreds of the damn things. Look at linux already; how many repository formats, how many installers?

Yes, oh please god yes

dazfuller - May 5, 2009 @ 12:02pm

I find it bizarre that when you list the details of a distro you normally end up having to say which package manager it uses! Surely this should be irrelevent to the end user, why should they have to learn how to use a new package management system if they swap distro. Plus if you go to a website which provides package downloads its madness that you have to scan through a list like

Debian/Ubuntu
Fedora
Suse
.tar.gz

Of course it would be great if the distro's all used a standard base so that packagers didn't have to worry so much about the target distro, some sort of linux standard base? Crazy I know.

I wouldn't do it

Shashank Sharma (not verified) - May 5, 2009 @ 12:52pm

Don't know if anyone made the argument yet, but why fix something that isn't broken. It's nowhere close to being broken. It works!

Sure, a unified package format will be a huge help to users and package maintainers, but I'm fine with all the different package formats, and I'm sure many share my opinion.

Is there a huge learning curve involved, when you switch distros and have to install DEBs instead of RPMs? Short answer, no.

As for making the software package distro-agnostic, I say *tarballs*.

What's the one big reason, the big motivator, the final nail in the coffin, the real mccoy, to call for a unified package format? What is the one true and final question, whose only answer is: unified package format.

--
Shashank Sharma
linuxlala.net

Hey, what gives, my email didn't show up the first time!

yes

johnvile - May 5, 2009 @ 2:27pm

I'd also vote for .deb or it's nearest equivalent.
LinxMint web site is doing an interesting on it's web site with the software portal. It's A nice simple idea.

If all the major distros did something like it you wouldn't need to standardise anything.

YES, absolutely!!

Spanish-Penguin-in-UK (not verified) - May 5, 2009 @ 2:34pm

There are many good reasons. The main ones are:

1.- The end user will be able to find and install packages a lot easier, even if they're not in the main repos (we could even have a universal, gigantic, common repo for all distros, something like sourceforge just for linux with all packages available and tested).

2.- That's because developers will find it a lot easier to build just one package that would work for all distros, rather than just giving up on building any package at all (leaving just the source), or building just one for ... say ubuntu or fedora (leaving everyone else out).

3.- Choice is good!! Yes, but for everything? I know this is somewaht different, but we only have one kernel and not only we don't complain about it, we are very proud of it. Being open source you can compile it or modify it to your liking, and a universal kind of package would be just as customizable (I guess!).

4.- You can be sure that if you try a different distro you'll still be able to use the same programs (which is not the case now unless you go config, make, make install...). Even better, you should be able to just save the list of installed packages and read from there as you do now within only one distro.

Of course, on that everyone should compromise, because if we start go .deb or .rpm it won't happen. I could happily say pacman.

it's a pointless argument

Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - May 5, 2009 @ 4:00pm

it's a pointless argument anyway; it'll never happen.

Yes (with moderation)

El Perro Loco (not verified) - May 5, 2009 @ 5:46pm

What does a package system do? To simplify it a bit:

- it places files in directories;
- it makes sure files don't get overwritten when they shouldn't;
- it keeps track of dependencies.

What's the big deal, then, having a simple package structure and manager, that follows *some* standard? Just put a pretty face on it, and the job is done.

Want something different? Build it, use it, but make it compatible with the standard, so that the "translation" ('alien'-like) is quick and painless. Everybody gets their freedom, and everybody gets the safe ground of a standard.

Just my two cents...

Yes and satnardised distro directory

Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - May 5, 2009 @ 8:37pm

Of course this would be great, still would be able to use various package management software. Also, as it has been on the books for sometime, a standardised directory for all distros; as far as I am aware there is no benefit to the different directory structures from distro to distro.