Hi, ext Aniello Del Sorbo wrote: > Mac OS X is different. They have what they call Application Bundle. > You just (as user) drag the application you want to install into the > Application folder (owned by root, writable by admin). If you are an > admin you can copy it with no problem, otherwise an admin login and > password are asked. > Of course this is intended as : I own my Mac, I want my kid to use it. > I am the admin, he is not. I can install, he can run. > > Some application require to run an installer. If you are the admin it > would simply install, if the application needs to be root, it'll ask for > you password (to exec sudo I suppose). If you are a regular user a login > and password of an admin are asked. How do you uninstall it? Does it show up in your installed packages database? Does installing this kind of a package prevent you from later accidentally uninstalling something from which it depends? If it depends from a newer version of some package, could that get automatically updated too? Or do you end up with dozens copies of the same libraries in different directories (possibly compiled statically inside the application binaries) instead, with no way to get them all automatically security updated when some security hole is discovered in them? > > AFAIK, user-space-apps are more like what you were describing: some > apps require root to install, others do not. I don't know of any > distribution setup this way by default. > > > Unfortunately seems there are none. Linux distributions are supposed to follow standards like FHS: http://www.pathname.com/fhs/ Maemo packages should in principle follow also Debian policy. This adds some more requirements on where certain types of files are installed. And as stated in other mail, most of the useful apps require modifying system settings (e.g. to install themselves as a handler for files with certain mime-type). Games might be self-contained enough to be installed completely into a single directory, but the main focus of N800 isn't really games... - Eero
