Dear Redox Team
I am looking at the progress which Redox makes and it is amazing to see how fast it goes. Lastly I had an Idea about Software deployment and package management. We talked about in Reddit about the Filesystem Hierarchy and it is clear for me that the Unix way is much more practical. For Unix it is very important that you have a package manager to keep track of all the files and dependencies. I had an Idea and wanted to share with you guys and I would really appreciate to hear your opinions about it.
But first of all I want to explain why I came to this and why I think this could be a breaking through innovation in the open source OS world.
There are many amazing Operating systems out there and there are great concepts in each of them. Unix like Operating Systems are great for Servers, Windows Systems great for Developers and Businesses and OS X is great for designers and artists.
All these Operating Systems have their key advantages and disadvantages. And now Redox is upcoming as the brand new Operating System which is also UNIX based. People might think, why they should use Redox instead of Linux? That’s what I asked to myself. Redox is aiming to be a Server Operating System. I think, it is also aming as an Operating System for home users which are not that experienced. Or?
People explained me very kindly on Reddit how the Package Manager keeps the System clean and manages all the installed apps on the system. There are a lot of Components needed to install a Package like Pre and Post Scripts and as I assume a Database as well to store all the App/Package file information for removing or updating.
The Idea:
Imagine if a Program or a package is like a Plugin stored in a Single file/folder which is a kind of a Zip file/container where you can look in it and see all the related files. The key advantages of that, is that you do not need a complex package manager nor a pre or post script to install these “System extensions”. You can easily remove them by hand without forgetting any files in any other folders which is for end users much more comfortable.
As well for servers in Businesses when it comes to managing a lot of computers in a domain you can simply specify which packages can be synced with all the different computers.
This is also for security reasons that a program cannot affect any another installed application. So the installed application is limited to its directory structure inside the file container.
The app doesn’t need to be a file. It can be a folder with a file extension as well.
Example:
Firefox.app
FFMPEG.pkg
Advantages:
- Simplified install/uninstall process
- Security to other Applications
- Less complexity for the package manager
- Managing Packages for Servers or Workstations in a Domain much simpler.
- For unexperienced users it is much more simpler and easier to understand.
Sticking on concepts which are decades old is in my opinion not always a good idea, even if they are revised over time.
My English is not the best but I hope you can understand it.
