Re: Comparison: SFX: Autopackage; Zero Install

2009/1/13 Chris Giles <[email protected]>:
> Hi Thomas
>
> Thanks for taking the time to post to this thread.  My responses are listed
> below yours.
[...]
>>  http://0install.net/0export.html
>
> I tried out ZI and read about its export feature a few days ago as possible
> options, but I don't think the latter is quite mature enough yet.  However,
> I want to note that I think ZI has much to offer the subject of package
> management.

Hi Chris,

No, it's not quite ready yet. It needs to allow adding things to the
user's menu even if the user doesn't have Zero Install. Currently, you
can only run the program directly. Since it does contain a full copy
of Zero Install, it could just install that, but most distributions
provide their own version of Zero Install in their repositories, and
it would be more friendly if it offered to use the distribution's copy
instead, I think.

>> $ ./stellarium-setup.sh
>
> I'm guessing that executable packages created by the export feature would
> need a decent amount of file-size overhead, whereas v1.2.6 Autopackages only
> seem to need about an extra 30 KiB.  I'm not really concerned about
> possessing the offline installation capability.

It bundles a copy of Zero Install, which adds about 100 KB:

$ 0export supertux-setup.sh
http://download.berlios.de/supertux/supertux-0.1.3.x86.package
$ ls -lh supertux-*
-rw-r--r-- 1 talex talex 6.7M 2009-01-14 17:51 supertux-0.1.3.x86.package
-rwxr-xr-x 1 talex talex 6.8M 2009-01-14 17:52 supertux-setup.sh

On the other hand, supertux-setup.sh can be run on a machine without
any network connection, whereas the .package file needs one to
download Autopackage the first time. Of course, it would be easy to
change 0export to not bundle it, or (presumably) to create an
Autopackage with the code included.

> I've just read Jan-Nik's response to this topic.  I agree that it's a good
> idea for the AP and ZI people to communicate more or even find a way to
> merge the technologies.

Is anyone interesting in following up on this thread?

http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.autopackage.devel/5733/focus=5734

I think combining the Autopackage build tools for binary compatibility
with Zero Install for publishing and security makes a lot of sense.

A few other things that have been added since I wrote that:

- Mirroring for metadata: http://roscidus.com/0mirror/
- System-wide installation: http://0install.net/sharing.html
- Peer-to-peer installation (experimental): http://0install.net/0share.html


-- 
Dr Thomas Leonard		ROX desktop / Zero Install
GPG: 9242 9807 C985 3C07 44A6  8B9A AE07 8280 59A5 3CC1

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