danyspin97's site - Improving Linux Packaging: rinstall

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2021-06-25 01:00:02

Let’s face it. Packaging software on Linux is an underappreciated job. If they do their job correctly, almost no one will notice them. But the moment they do a mistake, the users of their distribution will likely go mad.

They often work with no standard tool for build and install. They have to dig into other people source code daily and fix errors regarding build and dependencies. Likewise, they also have to discuss and teach developers about how distributions and standard works. Knowing Linux hierarchy, where to place files and a lot of unwritten rules to make systems work is surely out of the scope for most developers. And I think they have all the rights to skip this knowledge. They develop software, they don’t build systems (but there are exceptions too!).

However, developers are (almost) always asked to write the installation target for their software, may it be a shell script or a complex C codebase. Here, tools often don’t help the developers, as they don’t properly support or enforce the various standards. Therefore, package maintainers have to fill the gap themselves. It usually happens in their own distribution package specification. How many distributions are there? Tons. And this work is duplicated countless times.