05:28 pm, 23 Oct 05
software update
It struck me today, running
I really take it for granted, but that is the product of a lot of hard work, and it is awesome.
apt-get update, that every single bit of software installed on my machine -- from the kernel to firefox to the terminal to the clock in the corner -- not only knows how to update itself, but it's also all sharing enough abstractions that downloading, installing, configuring, and even configuration options can all be done through a single unified interface.I really take it for granted, but that is the product of a lot of hard work, and it is awesome.
I don't think its necessary for any specific program itself to include any update logic in it. Rather, the developer has the burden of sending out updates to various repositories which then communicate with the generic software-update tool.
With dpkg at least, each package comes with information to drive a configuration interface and scripts to set it up. While the unpacking process is well-known and handled entirely by the package manager, the setup and configuration is not.
Of course, not all Debian packages have a brilliant configuration system built in, but all of the important ones are stuctured in such a way that they can interoperate with other packages and with manual user edits, so long as the user sticks to the recommended conventions. I think it's this kind of work that Evan was referring to. Dependency solving alone isn't too hard a problem when you have a copy of the entire package list mirrored locally.
I have someone reading all my LJ and DJ entries and therefore I want to make them private without going through each one individually. I know I saw an LJ with someone that made a code for making every past entry friends only, sadly I cannot find it. If you have any ideas please let me know.
Thanks so much!