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Ubuntu considers “huge” change that would end traditional release cycle (ars technica)Ubuntu considers “huge” change that would end traditional release cycle (ars technica)Posted Jan 24, 2013 1:44 UTC (Thu) by Company (guest, #57006)In reply to: Ubuntu considers “huge” change that would end traditional release cycle (ars technica) by cjwatson Parent article: Ubuntu considers “huge” change that would end traditional release cycle (ars technica)
I've not yet seen a discussion of the "app store" model (for lack of a better name), that the GNOME community has been getting excited about.
In that model, the "operating system" (kernel, libc, networkmanager, X, desktop) is getting regular releases in unison and all the other packages - the apps - are on their own schedule(s). This would allow testability, upgradability and other nice things for the core system while not holding back anyone that wants to run the latest libreoffice or Firefox.
A second thing very useful for this approach is flattening the dependency graph. Instead of thousands of components, you get an "Operating System" package, one package per program (potentially shipping its own dependencies) and very little else. Again, this reduces the complexity of the system (foo only breaks if bar is installed and at least version 1.12 but baz isn't installed) and adds a bunch of nice benefits.
Of course, that approach is totally not about choice. And we all know that distros don't succeed if you can't rebuild them on a FreeBSD kernel with an Android libc.
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OS vs apps Posted Jan 24, 2013 17:18 UTC (Thu) by rfunk (subscriber, #4054) [Link]
I'm not a GNOME fan, but I'd be a fan of such a model. Is any distribution actually doing it?
The hard and controversial part would be where to draw the line between OS and apps.
OS vs apps Posted Jan 24, 2013 22:17 UTC (Thu) by jospoortvliet (subscriber, #33164) [Link]
openSUSE, in a way. Enable the GNOME Stable obs repo. But it ain't entirely smooth. There is also tumbleweed, a rolling repo (no, it is not for testing like Debian testing or rawhide, we have Factory for that). Note that openSUSE works a bit different than other distros thanks to OBS, we use a github like model for distro package development.
OS vs apps Posted Jan 24, 2013 23:13 UTC (Thu) by rfunk (subscriber, #4054) [Link]
Heh, I see great irony in the idea of switching from Ubuntu to openSUSE because of a GNOME repository, since I'm a longtime KDE user who always saw SuSE as the place I'd go if I valued KDE purity over Debian-based administration. I'll have to keep it in mind.
OS vs apps Posted Jan 26, 2013 22:16 UTC (Sat) by Company (guest, #57006) [Link]
Your base system is one single packet? And the apps are single packets and have no other dependencies than that base packet?
OS vs apps Posted Jan 27, 2013 1:12 UTC (Sun) by viro (subscriber, #7872) [Link]
Why the devil would anybody want such an abomination? A bug in a library (and you would have to put a _lot_ of them into the "OS" part) and you are welcome to download hundred of megabytes of binaries. That's completely insane.
OS vs apps Posted Jan 27, 2013 4:46 UTC (Sun) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
Diff-based binary patches are nothing new. Android uses them just fine.
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