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Application bundles (OSX style)

abacus

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Thursday, October 11th 2007, 12:21pm

Application bundles (OSX style)

On Mac OSX, the mac Finder treats folders with the .app extension as executable programs (the binary, icon file, and dependencies are actually placed in an appropriate directory structure inside the .app folder). Thus it's possible to distribute entire programs, dependencies, etc. contained in what appear to be single executable files, complete with icons; which can be freely moved anywhere without breaking the program.

This is also implemented on gnuStep, with a directory structure which allows for different OS's to execute a different binary while sharing common dependencies.

Package management, program installation and dependency issues are such a headache under unix(s), and I reckon that implementing app bundles on KDE (i.e. dolphin, konqueror) would be a killer feature that would see KDE bury gnome overnight.
(Who'd have thought - a unix desktop environment that actually lets you manage programs intuitively??)

jucato

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Thursday, October 11th 2007, 2:02pm

Unfortunately, this is not an area that KDE is responsible for. KDE is a desktop environment. It's main concern is the desktop software and libraries. It doesn't make packages either and distributes source code only of KDE software. KDE leaves it up to the distribution or operating system to take care of resolving and installing the dependencies required to compile, install, or run KDE. As such, it is something for distributions to chew on. KDE itself is not a complete OS.

That said, there are some "alternatives". PC-BSD implements a packaging system similar to this I believe. There is also a project called klik2 which allows you to temporarily/arbitrarily run KDE software using a sort of image. Take note however, that even the klik developers do not recommend nor do they plan to make it a substitute for real package management.

Anyway, most modern Linux and BSD distributions today have very mature package management systems. Distributions such as Kubuntu, openSUSE, Debian, etc. all have package managers that are quite easy to use, without the user having to necessarily deal with dependencies. If your distros package management isn't doing it for you, might want to try out other distros, or help your distro in making things better. :)
OS: Kubuntu 6.06 LTS (Dapper Drake) | KDE 3.5.3
Computer Specs: AMD Sempron 2200 1.5Ghz | VIA KM266 Pro 8235 chipset | nVidia GeForce MX 4000 128MB DDR-RAM 32-bit AGP 8x

coucou78

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Tuesday, November 6th 2007, 11:07pm

i understand what he's wanting to mean ...
package manager for ALL distrubtion are boring too use.


installing a software under os x is very simple , drag and drop under Application and that's all.

with GNU/linux you must
- know the package manager (synaptic, yast, urpmi, smart ...etc)
- know the name of the software
- have the good source
- etc ...

which of those 2 ways/methods is simple ?

This post has been edited 1 times, last edit by "coucou78" (Nov 6th 2007, 11:07pm)

NJ Hewitt

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Thursday, November 15th 2007, 10:38am

Well, to be fair, you need a good source and the name of your software in OSX or any OS too, and your package manager is probably labelled as such in your K-menu.

You raise a fair point, but new Linux features like openSuSE's 1-Click Install and the apt-url feature coming in Hardy Heron are quickly making Linux software installation very very quick and easy.