[kwlug-disc] What's the best desktop distribution?

[Paul Nijjar]

On Thu, Feb 04, 2010 at 04:12:11PM -0500, Chris Frey wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 04, 2010 at 02:07:46PM -0500, Paul Nijjar wrote:
> > 
> > Why can't somebody write code that will automatically register
> > RubyGems and Drupal modules into APT's databases, so that running
> > apt-get upgrade will inform me (and allow me to upgrade) those
> > packages when there are fixes? There are already lots of reasonable
> > packaging systems out there. Why can't they all just get along?
> 
> Not to be harsh, and maybe you don't realize it, but you're asking
> for the Windows world here.

> Do you trust every random site you pull a Drupal module from? 

Most of the modules hypothetical me pulls Drupal modules from is
ftp.drupal.org . The code might be bad, but somebody is still going
through a process to package that code and make it work with the rest
of Drupal. Why do I want Debian developers to redo all of that work? 

> Making 'apt-get update ; apt-get upgrade' work properly means that there
> is someone behind the scenes doing the work for us.

My point is that somebody is already doing that work -- the people
who package those modules for Ruby or CRAN or CPAN or CTAN or... This
is not totally arbitrary software. 

I don't expect this code to integrate as well as an Ubuntu LTS or
Debian stable. But my experience should not be worse than running
Debian experimental, and (because I have to manually check and upgrade
a lot of widely deployed software), I would argue that it is. 

If I stick to stable releases of these modules, then I would expect my
experience to be not much worse than Debian unstable. 

Obviously, I would not ask for these updates to happen without my
approval. But if I had could "apt-get install drupal-module-packager"
or something then I would at least have the option of using a single
interface to make sure *all* my software is updated (which was Lori's
stated claim). That module-packager would register .deb entries for
every Drupal module I install (via the interface). It would be able to
check drupal.org for updates. And it would be able to download and
install those updates if I want. 

Wow do I feel itchy. I wish I had fingernails to scratch with. 

- Paul