Multi-distro, universal packages

I’m just a noob who likes OpenMandriva and Linux in general, so I
don’t know what i’m talking about, but I was browsing the web and
found two interesting projects:

http://flatpak.org/ (Focus in security and I think it’s free) <<
Flatpak - Wikipedia

http://snapcraft.io/ (From Canonical) <<
Snap (package manager) - Wikipedia

Is it possible (maybe in the future) to implement those kind of
universal packages and drop RPM forever in OpenMandriva? Or maybe
implement both side-by-side and have two options to install programs
easily on OMCC Package Manager and without requiring a internet connection
like RPM does when you download a package from the internet?

Are there plans to do that already?

Sorry if my english is wrong. :slight_smile:

Edit: Where are my manners? Maybe the pain meds are messing up my brain… I should have started with “Welcome guims, thanks for trying OpenMandriva and posting here. Look forward to working with you in the future.” Better late than never I guess.

Probably not a good idea for an all volunteer organization with no full time employees or developers. There are like maybe 3 developers currently none are full time. What you are proposing would be a massive amount of work.

Why get rid of rpm? Any specific concern? The fact someone suggests this indicates one hasn’t read about history of OpenMandriva. It evolved thus Mandrake>Mandriva>OpenMandriva. The original version of Mandrake was a fork of Red Hat (think Redhat Package Management) with the KDE desktop. Ergo in 1998 Red Hat v. 5.1 was forked to MandrakeLinux 5.1 codename Venice. And here we are.

For more just start googling Mandrake, Mandriva, OpenMandriva, and so on.

Mandriva

Edit: Internet connection is not necessary to use rpm.

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I know about the roots of OpenMandriva (Red Hat > Mandrake/Conectiva > Mandriva > OpenMandriva) :slight_smile:

I’m just thinking that would be easier to have packages made once and compatible everywhere, even if only as a alternative package format, not system-wide.

Actually RPM does need a internet connection sometimes, e.g. when you don’t have a required dependency installed on your system. It happens specially when you try to download a program from a site on internet like pbone or rpmfind.

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As someone on QA-Team I would reject this out of hand. No way do I want to be suggesting or recommending to users to run applications they don’t or may not trust. We always want to recommend that users never use applications they don’t or may not trust. So Flatpak is a non-starter for me. I certainly don’t want to make this easy to do.

Why on earth do you want to be running applications you may not fully trust? What applications specifically?

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Before I go further I should mention that I do appreciate your enthusiasm and especially your ideas. That’s very kind and thoughtful on your part. We look forward to further contribution and collaboration with you. I’m a user like you and you should not let my disagreeing with your ideas discourage you in any way. I try to stick to talking about what I know about but I am wrong sometimes.

As far a Snappy I’m sure you read bero’s (Bernhard Rosenkranzer) post about this on the Cooker ML. bero is an expert developer and very knowledgeable about these things.

What we currently need to do is build up user base and attract more developers, package managers, and so on. There are other ways to contribute as well. If you are able help in any of this or anywhere else in the distro that would be wonderful and greatly appreciated. Hopefully over time we can grow into being able to take on projects like Snappy if they are deemed desirable.

Edit: Please see my edit in my first post.

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Maybe it could be interesting for third party packages, such as skype, viber…?

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Also for developers to be able to provide fully installable multiOS package with static libaries, this would not prevent packagers3 to build rpms from source.

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That’s exactly what i’m thinking, I agree that dropping support for RPM would be a bad idea but I don’t see any problems supporting those packages as a alternative.

No problems. I hope you get better soon, ben79 :wink:

I only install programs I trust like Dolphin or Blender, I don’t know about other people. :stuck_out_tongue:

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@guims we are now in a situation where some developers have other projects to manage in life, so we are in lack of manpower, but that is life :sob:
Anyway, we would be happy if you want to take more part in development and future of distro, all discussion is interesting and your way of speaking is very constructive :smile_cat:

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Thank you! I’m not a developer, but I’ll try to get Snap or Flatpak running on my OpenMandriva somehow and then post the results, good luck for me! :smile_cat:


I made a little research and it seems that running Snapd requires compiling the source code, enabling the service through systemd and installing new packages, I’ll try it (maybe not now, I’m using a internet connection of 30Kbps!). :frowning:

Also interested, I made run rkt and packaged it succesfully (locally) :slight_smile:

I see indeed situations where it can help.

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