Linux standards

[gaf at blu.org (Jerry Feldman)]

After last night's meeting I had a better perspective on the Linux 
standards. On Unix I've been involved with implementing to meet standards. 
I've also sat on some standards committees.

One of the issues I have with the Linux (and Unix) community is packaging. 
Red Hat and Mandrake use roughtly equivalent RPMs. 
SuSE uses RPMs, but their database is maintained differently. 
Debian does its own thing with .deb.
Slackware uses tarballs.
All the above systems can use RBM or import .deb

For Linux to thrive in a non sophisticated user environment, such as most 
Windows and Macs),  most applications would probably require binary 
installs using a standardized package manager. 

Many Linux and BSD applications are distributed in source form. I would 
like to see a more standardized packaging/install procedure for these also. 
Most of the better apps require the following steps:
1. ./configure [ configure arguments ]
2. make
3. become root.
4. make install
5. become non-root.

This could be easily done by a package manager. While binary installs are 
good for many users, source installs can be more customized to your 
environment. 


--
Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org>
Associate Director
Boston Linux and Unix user group
http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9
PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9