The Future of Packaging Software in Linux

michuk writes "There are currently at least five popular ways of installing software in GNU/Linux. None of them are widely accepted throughout the popular distributions. This situation is not a problem for experienced users — they can make decisions for themselves. However, for a newcomer in the GNU/Linux world, installing new software is always pretty confusing. The article tries to sum up some of the recent efforts to fix this problem and examine the possible future of packaging software in GNU/Linux."

Re:The solution!

[SnowZero]

Don't worry, a seventh way will come along to wrap those first six which don't solve the problem, and it will be the ultimate meta-universal generic packaging system.

I have a feeling

[true_hacker]

I bet RMS would be jumping around with joy reading this article, the author uses "GNU/Linux".

Re:Applications Packages

[jrockway]

But wait, if you run Firefox, OpenOffice, GIMP, and KIllustrator on OS X, it requires *5* entire windowing libraries.

Re:The solution!

[ElleyKitten]

Nobody is willing to pay for Windows

I actually know a guy who purchased a brand-new copy of Vista for the computer he just built. Of course, he also unplugged all his fans when he was afraid that his power supply wasn't strong enough, so he's not exactly bright.