Installing Software

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I've been looking at GNU Stow and considering how it might function within=
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the context of the full GNU Operating System.

If I understand the documentation correctly GNU Stow is geared toward=20
binary packages and that those packages must somehow already exist=20
within the stow directory in order to be able to install them?

If there were ever an official release of the GNU Operating System how=20
would those packages get there? Should the GNU Installer (which doesn't=20
seem to exist yet) put GNU packages into the stow directory so that=20
they're then in an installable state? That seems like it would be a waste=
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of space just to have a GNU package be "available."

Maybe there should be mechanism for retrieving the desired packages (from=
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somewhere, perhaps over the internet and/or from the install media) and=20
dropping them into the stow directory?

What about the source code? It might be nice if there were an easy way to=
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change, say, the configure flags that were used to create the binary so=20
that some features could be enabled/disabled/changed/whatever.

Just some thoughts. Thanks for listening.

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