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Description
Installing a package from source remains a *task* for someone new to Linux, more so if a .deb/.rpm package file for it does not exist. Moreover, specifying the options in the ./configure command might also specify various installation options (depending on packages, though).
Till now, this idea is being grossly misinterpreted. I do not want a second package management system, neither do I want to implement something heavy. I just want to implement a simple little file, that could enable users to easily set configure flags, and maybe at a later stage, try to automatically resolve dependencies. Sometimes source installations can easily go from simple to complex. I am keeping that in mind.
Would a proposal for designing such a user interface sound nice? I could implement this, if it sounds worthy.
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adotei wrote on the 7 Mar 08 at 23:46
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I think the easiest way of going about this will be to create a gui for creating .deb packages from source packages. This will allow the program to be installed easily from the created .deb package and then uninstalled later on.
I don't know what it will take to create a .deb package as I have searched high and low but not found enough details online that will enable a linux newbie like me to create one.
I might be wrong but I think this will satisfy the above request and also ensure that people can easily create their own .deb packages too.
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arsham wrote on the 8 Mar 08 at 05:51
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I use kinstaller and konfigure for KDE
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siddhant wrote on the 8 Mar 08 at 06:44
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A UI for creating .deb packages also sounds great.
Though there can be various options that are specified as different flags, while in the ./configure step. My main thought was to give a nice (and simple) interface to the user to tackle those flags.
( All this keeping GNOME in mind. :) )
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Fer wrote on the 8 Mar 08 at 08:19
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Its great idea. For new users in linux it will be one of a great stone to select ubuntu linux. GUI interface for install and creating shortcuts for launching new application downloading not from synaptic its great!
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andrewfenn wrote on the 8 Mar 08 at 10:29
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If you're installing from source then there is probably a good reason, such as you're using a svn revision of the code, etc.
If you need a GUI for make, make install then it's best that you get a .deb instead.
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gespertino wrote on the 8 Mar 08 at 15:46
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Compiling from sources is not difficult, but isn't a task for beginners either.
I think it's better to stress on the package manager and gdebi instead of trying to simplify the process of compiling for new users. Compiling requires a minimal knowledge about dependencies that newcomers and gui guys maybe aren't interested on learning.
If a simple "make" via terminal is too much for you maybe you shouldn't be compiling.
Anyway, there are GUI tools (debcreator, for instance). I don't think they should be available in the default installation. Compiling (even whith gui tools) requires learning a couple of things before starting. When you do the proper research, you bump with gui tools in some point.
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Glaxed wrote on the 8 Mar 08 at 17:42
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Out of curiosity, how would you write this? (btw I love the idea)
Some configure scripts give vague or weird errors that may mean missing libraries or something else completely...
No dependencies to automatically check here, are they :).
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tantalanta wrote on the 8 Mar 08 at 17:49
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As gespertino wrote, compiling is not too difficult. But if it fails at first go you will need at least a bit of experience. When I was first faced with compiling errors, I felt somewhat overstrained.
A UI would be nice, but I doubt, that it would do much more than translate typing in mouse actions, more convenient but not neccessarily more beginner friendly.
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siddhant wrote on the 8 Mar 08 at 18:39
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@ Glaxed
What I had thought was, doing a "./configure --help" in the source directory gives you a list of the flags that can be set/overridden.
Parse the output, take out the lines starting with a " -- " (since these specify those flags), and generate a UI dependent on it, using which the user can specify the options. In the background meanwhile, generate a simple shell command based on the options set by user.
The above thing seemed to work in 3,4 sources I checked.
@ More experienced people than me
Do I sound like I'm wearing pink glasses? Forgive me if I do. I have been using Linux for just 5,6 months now, and really want to get into doing things. :)
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siddhant wrote on the 9 Mar 08 at 07:53
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@ Glaxed
One more thought here. Errors which come when you are dealing with the terminal cant simply be avoided even when you are using a UI for the same. If they have to come, they will come. The only advantage I can get for this case is to present a nice/understandable/a-bit-non-techie message to the user.
@ Lots of more experienced people than me
Correct me if I am wrong, or I sound too rosy. :D
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FreeAtMind wrote on the 10 Mar 08 at 15:26
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Maybe using checkinstall package with a GUI..
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siddhant wrote on the 10 Mar 08 at 20:45
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checkinstall requires you to do a configure and make beforehand.
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XVIIarcano wrote on the 18 Mar 08 at 14:23
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Personally I have never managed to compile anything, even when a computer engineer friend of mine says it's simple as drinking a glass of water, "make" always just refused to work.
I think that a GUI for this (actually a proper front end for all the CLI commands involved) might be uberhelpful. I agree that nothing replaces the knowledge of what you are doing but if the program could at least take care of the syntax, I'd be more than happy to spend some time understanding the substance of it.
After all if we follow the hardcore reasoning synaptic is not so useful, you could do it all via apt-get, don't you? In my case, I have learned to use apt after using synaptic, once I understood the underlying philosophy I got to think "well, hou could I do it twice as fast?" and the CLI was there in all its splendor.
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DavidNielsen wrote on the 19 Mar 08 at 18:04
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This is basically creating a heap of new problems. What we want is packages that go through the build system, not adding what is basically a second package management system that interferes and overlaps with the existing dpkg system.
It's just evil, sorry. I also doubt it's a common task for new users, if it is, it would be an argument for making it easy to request new packages.
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siddhant wrote on the 20 Mar 08 at 09:06
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Its not at all a second package management system. It just means creating a small little utility allowing you to specify configure options/flags, to customise an installation.
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MasterSushi wrote on the 3 Apr 08 at 23:06
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I am a Linux newbie and I think this is very much needed. I am constantly finding applications that no .deb file has been created for. I have not yet been able to successfully compile an application from source. If there could be some type of GUI that would address errors and dependency issues and resolve them behind the scenes and create a .deb file for the users system, this would be amazing. Software installation in my opinion, is the one area that Linux is very disjointed. There are so many distros that people who make an application simply can't make an installer for every distro, so they provide the source and leave the users on their own to compile it themselves. If this process can be made easy, all of my qualms with Linux would disappear instantly.
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Arnaudus wrote on the 24 Apr 08 at 15:34
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I can't understand why there are so many positives votes for this idea, sorry. This looks stupid AND impossible.
Stupid because this would encourage newbies to install softs from sources, which is not in the Ubuntu philosophy. I compile softs from the sources from time to time, but this is always for "bad" reasons: because I want the new-version-that-is-not-yet-in-Ubuntu, because it's just a crappy game I will remove in a couple of hours, etc etc. Instead of encouraging people to make their own crappy self-generated .deb files, one should increase the size of the community that provides official and tested packages for updates and new softs.
Impossible because... it's just impossible :-) Distros that are proposing to compile the binaries instead of already-built packages, such as Gentoo, do not provide tools for self-compiling : they provide *packages* with sources included. Sources are checked, dependencies are added and checked, versions of libraries, compatibility etc. are checked as well, and everything is packaged. Otherwise, it is just impossible. 99% of source tar.gz cannot be dealt with automatically. Automake is a REAL mess, and there are many different versions, very different ways to intialize the process, because there are many ways to provide the sources (sometimes, there is an "autogen.sh" script, sometimes not, it is very often necessary to read the "INSTALL" or "README" instructions...). Moreover, it is very, very likely that some dependencies are just missing in the configure process (who really cares about very common -dev packages for instance?). Well, I skip a lot of other arguments, I just end up signaling that there are different ways to build the binary, and ./configure && make && sudo make install is less and less used, although I don't really now the new things such as "scons", that look quite powerful. Well, my point is: this is just impossible.
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siddhant wrote on the 29 Apr 08 at 18:12
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Arnaudus :
Thanks for replying. My 2 cents on your 2 cents -
Stupid : Check out kinstaller. The idea I've put up here, I later discovered is quite *similar* to the work that kinstaller does. We are not referring to the mechanism of the two here; kinstaller is, as I suppose, a different software used to install source based software. What I propose, is just one small little tiny file; just put it inside the source directory, and relax, enjoy life, while your source based package gets installed.
Impossible :
No. Two reasons -
1. I believe what I have put up here, is logical. I tried doing a ./configure --help for 5,6 different sources, and all of them gave similar outputs. Parsing which, in that case, should not be impossible.
2. I agree, exceptions always arise. But what I propose here, should work for most of those packages which involve a ./configure, make, make install sequence.
And yes, Gentoo is an altogether different issue. Using such softwares (like the one I propose here) on Gentoo, is like mocking the distro. It'll just take the fun out of it. :)
Cheers! :)
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Blueprint ui-for-installation-from-source: