Re: "Install here" : why Linux doesn't do it?
 

please, dont go off-topic :)

Re: "Install here" : why Linux doesn't do it?
 

Why the stuff that goes on with package managers wasn't just regular regular installers running in unattended mode?

Re: "Install here" : why Linux doesn't do it?
 

This one-man whine fest is going to go in circles forever. It is like explaining to a small child, and they repeatedly ask why after each answer. Eventually you have to say 'because it just f'ing does'

Re: "Install here" : why Linux doesn't do it?
 

Many. For a start, "unattended mode" is hardly standarised; you'll quickly find that implementing a package manager over random third party installers quickly requires human intervention -- as the many "win-apt"-like projects found (which tried to implement "windows" package managers).

Either way I do agree with clasificado. I didn't get your point here.

Re: "Install here" : why Linux doesn't do it?
 

They can all standardize the packaging stuff, why not the installer system?



@jflatt: indeed we've been around in a few aspects, but i've been learning a lot with what some people say here (also a few things make lots of sense once they've been pointed out for me, not necessarily new information, but presented in a way that makes things fit together in my head)

Re: "Install here" : why Linux doesn't do it?
 

It would require all third party vendors playing the same game, which is nearly impossible in the Windows world, and would take 5 years at best (think how many Windows software is still not using MSI, which is 8 years old).

And I still don't get your point.

Re: "Install here" : why Linux doesn't do it?
 

I mean incorporate a standalone installer in the packaging system, for mass installation it would work just like a plain package, but when desired would have all the options one would expect on a decent installer

edit: and would work with different packaging systems etc, even possible to install without one as well

Re: "Install here" : why Linux doesn't do it?
 

Main reason is the one I stated on an earlier post: few people if any would use it.

The current trend is the exact opposite; that is: to move to question-less packages. See Microsoft Installer, iPhone apps, etc.

Re: "Install here" : why Linux doesn't do it?
 

So basicly, until someone makes an specialized solution for the N900, we're pretty much screwed? :(



I was hoping this thread wouldn't end with "Well, dung happens" :(

Re: "Install here" : why Linux doesn't do it?
 

And that's something I wanted to hear, just to then be able to ask: what's the problem you just experienced that triggered this discussion? Can we concentrate on fixing _that_ package instead of the world?

Don't you realise that if such package was fixed, you WOULDN'T need the option you're asking for, at all?

Re: "Install here" : why Linux doesn't do it?
 

screwed how?
you have yet to deliver an argument as to why you want it your way, other than it's what you're used to.

there is no need for such an installer. period.

Re: "Install here" : why Linux doesn't do it?
 

Tab complete works for any executable anywhere in $PATH

Re: "Install here" : why Linux doesn't do it?
 

Yes of course you're completely and utterly correct, and the entire Linux/Unix community is wrong. We are very very sorry we didn't fix Linux immediately after you pointed out this fundamental flaw to us.

Re: "Install here" : why Linux doesn't do it?
 

TiagoTiago I think I understand what you're trying to say. Other phones or OS, like Windows, Symbian, etc, let you install to different disks/memorycard so you have neatly compartmentalized groups of things. In Symbian you can even swap SD cards and have the installed apps appear or disappear from the app menu based on which card is plugged in.

I will try to explain it in more detail:

In most normal linux machines, if you run out of space and add more disks or partitions you either mount them as a subdirectory someplace or expand your volumes onto them using LVM. This is not usually a big deal because in most cases, linux installations will have been set up with plenty of disk space allocated for the main OS and installed programs, and this excess disk space usage is caused by user data. That kind of stuff is easy to deal with (put /home/user/ onto another disk, put your movie collection to a separate disk, etc, voila)

Since this is not normally a problem, there is really no point in separating things like you want to do. The package manager ensures there are no conflicts, everything goes where it belongs (FHS) and the world moves along happily. User data and config goes into /home/user/ in almost all well-behaved applications. (System-wide settings are a different story, and system-vs-user is a really difficult distinction to make on N900 at times)

Now I'll play mind-reader: Why should he care about this in the first place? Probably because there's not enough space on N900 to install programs. So, I think the real question here is not "why can't I install to arbitrary locations?" but "why doesn't N900 have more disk space available for installed applications?". For the latter question, there is surely a solution. If your question is truly the former and is purely speculation, and you don't have a real problem that you're trying to solve, then the hundred+ replies so far are basically all you're going to get from people I guess. :)

So, on to what I think is your real problem and solution:
N900 only has 256MB of rootfs space. That's a hardware limit, nothing we can do about it. Contents of that 256MB were compressed, but that still wasn't enough. Low rootfs space was a real big problem when N900 first came out. The solution was optificiation, moving things to /opt (the 2gb ext3 home partition in eMMC space). It is slower than the rootfs, but at least it has more space and was an acceptable workaround to the original problem. Most applications have been repackaged to be optified (I think it's a requirement for promotion to extras now) and with PR1.2 a large amount of system files got moved into /opt.

But that's not the end of the problems. Now that we're leaning more heavily on /opt, another issue occurs. The 2gb partition that was originally for user data is now full of program data as well. For some users 2gb isn't enough space because of that. I've personally run out of space on the 2gb because big packages like openarena and kroll eat away at it quickly, and large files in my home directory...

We have MyDocs, approximately 27GB in size, but is no help for this because it is FAT32 and more importantly because it is prone to being unmounted when you plug your N900 into a computer. SD card is not really a (permanent) solution either because of the unmount possibility (and cover removed situation).

Therefore, I think if you want an actual solution to allow you to install more programs on your N900, the answer is clearly repartitioning your eMMC:
http://wiki.maemo.org/Repartitioning_the_flash

How much space you decide to allocate to each partition will depend on your needs and how you use your N900. It is a relatively simple thing to do and there are several ways to do it. (be sure to backup everything first!)

Personally I'll go with making as much of eMMC using linux filesystem as possible, and leave only a minimal MyDocs around for camera, documents and others to use. I can use SD card for storage of music/movies/whatever. (Solution #1 on the wiki looks like the best one to me)

If you have a specific example of a program that you must install elsewhere, or use case where this solution would not work for you, please tell so we can try to help.

If you want standalone programs contained in one directory:
Individual programs may be able to be packaged in a "portable" version, which has been built with static libs and looks in current dir for config files/data files (or has a wrapper shell script that sets environment to deal with it). That's really a specific use case and doesn't really apply to whole system package management in general. This portable version would need to be created by someone specifically for the purpose of being portable. Static libs are generally not a good thing for many reasons, security (if zlib has a security bug, instead of upgrading zlib, now every program compiled with zlib must be recompiled and upgraded as well), as well as increased memory and disk space usage by not using shared libs.

If you're compiling your own, you can do whatever you want. Usually you'd install them in your /home/user/ hierarchy with local user permissions. This is how most people do it on shared servers where their program is not installed system-wide. Again, though, this does nothing to help if the true problem is lack of disk space (or if you're unable or unwilling to compile and package things yourself).

If you want to compartmentalize/segregate programs entirely, you'll normally use a chroot, a container-based system like lxc or openvz, or a traditional virtual machine. All of those will probably use significantly more disk space than a normal package installation would, so for the problem of insufficient disk space are not a valid solution.

So, again, my recommendation to you is to repartition your N900 and enjoy the massive amounts of free space and have fun installing everything in the repos without worries. :D

HTH :)

Re: "Install here" : why Linux doesn't do it?
 

(1) Actually, there is no a general purpose installer in Linux.

(2) Nobody take care about it because it is not a problem.

(3) Your real problem - root FS space and bad "optification" can be solved in many different ways. See for exam - http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=59374
Or there is some development for "Join" file systems.

Re: "Install here" : why Linux doesn't do it?
 

this thread is still alive?

Re: "Install here" : why Linux doesn't do it?
 

Can you read?

Re: "Install here" : why Linux doesn't do it?
 

Nope. I cannot.

Re: "Install here" : why Linux doesn't do it?
 

No, I cannot. It's also obvious that you cannot read or not comprehend my post as you totally failed to answer the question I posted.

Thread, kill thyself!

Re: "Install here" : why Linux doesn't do it?
 

Sure. Let him get his hands dirty on Gentoo Quite sure he´ll start asking why certain build flags need to be utilized or why emerge hasn´t got this or that implemented.

And once he starts asking questions, the same way he does them here, the answer will simply be rtfm, RTFM, R-T-F-M (What? you haven´t read the handbook yet? get out of here and take the damn manual with you!).

In the end he´ll just complain and insist a generic LiveCD will be the only way to keep Gentoo alive...

All in all, the feeling I´ve got is pretty much the same as in the foreign country that I live in, when listening to people talking how everything in their homecountry is organised better than in the new country. He´s asking the Spanish why they can´t get rid of their siesta to have a more productive day like the Germans do. And every time a spanish person answers they don´t want or need to get rid of it, he´ll just repeat: but it´s more effective, the way they do it in Germany.

Did I mention he doesn´t speak Spanish and all of this is communicated in German?

Re: "Install here" : why Linux doesn't do it?
 

You say that as if it was a good thing. In effect we're going back to 2005 (the /var/lib/install situation) only worse (PATH bloat, no external interpreters, libs etc allowed) and it still doesn't do what the OP wants. Technically it's a bit more FHS-compliant, so I guess it's alright then.

Re: "Install here" : why Linux doesn't do it?
 

i'll try to remember that one for the next time i need to reflash my N900, thanx

Re: "Install here" : why Linux doesn't do it?
 

The fact that package separation is being thought about *is* a good thing. Whether the way they are doing it is the *best* way of going about it, is a different story entirely (on a side note, the external interpreters/libs/etc issue has nothing to do with the dir/file layout of the packages).

Re: "Install here" : why Linux doesn't do it?
 

I don't see why. At the end of the day (partitioning SNAFUs aside) nobody cares if the angry birds binary lives in /usr/bin, somewhere under /opt or anywhere else, since all user interaction with it is just launching it and that's done via its .desktop file. On the other hand I really wouldn't like having, say, an /opt/openssh/usr/bin/ssh that looks for its known_hosts file in ~/.config/ssh/, an
/opt/rsync/usr/bin/rsync that calls that and both present in my $PATH and being search every time I type a command. My mileage obviously varies but I like to think of my boxen as integrated systems rather than receptacles for independent self-contained apps.

Strictly speaking perhaps not, but if every external lib has to go to its own special directory under /opt then packaging anything that uses those is going to be a pain in the neck and the library search path is going to be long and slow to traverse. I guess it's much easier to sweep these problems under the carpet by making a policy that forbids external dependencies.

Re: "Install here" : why Linux doesn't do it?
 

Not to mention the extra work packagers would have to handle for each and every package.

Specially considering that the very reason this thread exists is because some packager couldn't use the theoretically _fully automated_ optification tool. Add in more weirdness (changing sysconfdir?) and the number of packages that do not bother at all will increase exponentially.

Re: "Install here" : why Linux doesn't do it?
 

Which part of dpkg --help are you having trouble with sir? (same for apt-get / aptitude)

You can even install man-db-n900 and man-db-pages so you can do man dpkg for even more information.

Read. Understand. The freedom you desire already exists. This doesn't mean it's always a good idea - just like rm -rf / as root is not a good idea - nothing stops you from doing it though - and this is a good thing! Seriously. I wouldn't want it any other way.