Comments on: OS X package management

By: mathew Zaleski

mathew Zaleski — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:56:50 +0000

where does fink fit in? http://www.finkproject.org

By: Mark Frautschi

Mark Frautschi — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:15:23 +0000

Although I remain pretty much an Apple Remote Desktop newbie, this product ships with a facility to make custom packages (PackageMaker.app) I have tinkered with. ARD can then install the packages on other networked Macs registered with the ARD client. ARD makes updating programs like Sophos Anti Virus over the LAN a lot easier. Apple charges $500 for ARD, so perhaps that is why it seems to be missing from this discussion. I do not know whether it leverages any open source components.

Mark Frautschi

By: Ben Rose

Ben Rose — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:40:36 +0000

And let me also add that Macports isn’t even a complete solution. It’s command line based. You know how many mac users even know they have a terminal!! So in response Bryanl’s “MacPort variants are enough reason to not provide binary packages”, I have to say that’s a load. You’re saying there’s no reason to provide binary packages, but the alternatives have users not only installing an additional program (macports) in order to install the one they want, but expect them to know how to navigate a terminal. Or they could download a GUI for it, which means in order to install ONE application, they now have to download and install THREE! I’m sorry Bryanl, but that’s just not really a proper reason to not provide binary packages.

By: Ben Rose

Ben Rose — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:32:02 +0000

Your initial quote from Mark is a bit ridiculous. 90% of the programs most OSX users are installing are provided in binaries, so no one’s really dropping into terminal, and yes, the translucent menu bar was worth it!

I wish the open source community would just man up and start providing binaries for their programs. Instead of dropping down to terminal and changing config files like Mark said, I just don’t install the programs, because chances are I can find a free or cheap alternative that will save me time and frustration. It’s attitudes like bryanl’s that are the reason why open source will never be as prevalent as commercial software. Open source communities are willing to give users a solution (such as MacPorts) but not the solution they want (binaries). I know it’s an extra step, but until it gets done, the average user is not going to want to waste their time with these programs.

By: Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:54:02 +0000

Just thought I’d mention Gentoo Linux and Portage.
If you don’t know about Gentoo, find out!
With the portage system it is possible to compile your linux essentially from scratch!!
(If you are an Ubuntu user that doesn’t see the point in this, keep doin what yer doin :P)
For all the folks interested in fine tuning their installations, this means you (potentially; depending on the settings in your /etc/make.conf file) get an operating system + all software compiled to run on your specific processor. Think speed :)
I’ve seen where Windows XP took roughly 45 seconds to open Mozilla Firefox (from freshly booted system after completely finishing boot) on an old 900MHz Duron with 256MB SDR. This same system running a custom compiled version of Gentoo for the Duron loaded Mozilla Firefox in roughly 10-15 seconds (and furthermore, is stable and smooth).
This is the beauty of custom compiled code :) (Coupled with on OS thats worth a damn).
But I’m getting away from my point. Yes Ubuntu is good to get the Windows User off of Windows, but if you actually want to see what linux can really do, give Gentoo a look. For you Ubuntu people that dont get why you compile code, its cuz you can build it how u want. As in, for your processor, optimized to the level of your liking.

By: Wu Ming

Wu Ming — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 23:21:12 +0000

@pianohacker
Mark Pilgrim is indeed a troll. It is laughable to spend 20 years of your computing life and suddenly discover you were dancing with the devil (and make a name on the internet blogosphere with that “discovery”). Yes indeed, he should get a life.
Know what’s more funnier though? He scorns the fact that to become and ADC member “you give up your rights”, but did you now he had to sign the same kind of contract giving up his rights when he went to work for Google? I guess you didn’t. But I digress.
And what’s the nonsense about a dmg anyway? Guess it must be too diffciult to mount a disk image and copy a file to a folder…

By: pianohacker

pianohacker — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 18:15:17 +0000

@AkitaOnRails: Ah, yes, that “troll” is Mark Pilgrim. Perhaps you’ve heard of him and his wonderful invention called “grammar”? But I digress.

Yes, the Ubuntu guys didn’t invent apt-get. But they did bundle it, thus making it a de-facto standard. Thus, when people want an Ubuntu user to install something, they just tell them to apt-get install it. They don’t tell the user to muck around with .dmg’s and such nonsense. Even better, since Ubuntu does bundle a very good package manager and uses it for quite literally everything up to OS upgrades, there aren’t fifty incompatible replacements for it, all of which require a different registration/installation/packaging/upgrade path.

By: bryanl

bryanl — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 13:00:56 +0000

Why not save everyone the build step and just push the universal binaries?

MacPort variants are enough reason to not provide binary packages.

By: http://kamui.myopenid.com/

http://kamui.myopenid.com/ — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 22:21:22 +0000

Have you taken a look at Rudix (http://rudix.org)? It doesn’t have as huge a package library as MacPorts, but they are precompiled universal binaries.

By: AkitaOnRails

AkitaOnRails — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 11:15:44 +0000

Ok, the original linked article was written by a troll.

MacPorts is as good as any other package manager. Does Apple “has” to do it? Nope, that’s why we have an open source community in the first place, right? apt-get was not invented by the Ubuntu guys, they just bundled it in, which is smart. There are several other distros with varying degrees of flexibility and comprehensive library. Yum/RPM comes to mind, Ports from FreeBSD.

So, I would say this guy to get a life (I didn’t find a comment space at the original article which makes me the troll theory strong as he doesn’t want contrary argument).

Great article. MacPorts and Porticus are great open source achievements. Hope the absence of Quartz, iLife, iWork, Adobe products, etc is worth the apt-get.