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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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The overlap between package managers and automation frameworks (lemy.lol)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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What do package managers do? Install packages, obviously! But that is not everything. In my opinion, package managers do enough to be characterized as general automation frameworks. For example:

manage configurations and configuration files
manage custom compilation options and flags
provide isolation or containerization
make sure a specific file is present in a specific place given specific conditions
change installation files or configuration based on architecture or other conditions

Not all package managers do all of the above, but you get the idea.

Nix even manages your entire setup with a single configuration file.

It occurred to me that package management could theoretically be managed by an automation framework.

What do I mean by automation framework? Ansible, chef, puppet, or Sparrow.

Now imagine if you were to use one of those package managers as an automation framework. For most of them, it would suck. (nix is a notable exception). So maybe common package managers are just bad automation frameworks?

What if we used an automation framework as a package manager? Well currently, it might also suck, but only because it lacks the package definitions. Maybe it is not a bad experiment to have a distribution managed by a modern automation framework like Sparrow.

What are the benefits?

usable on other distributions
more easily create your own packages on the fly
Greater customization and configurability
use a known programming language that is easy to read to define packages and other functions, instead of a DSL
your package manager can easily automate just about any task using the same syntax and framework

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

ask questions during installation in an interactive and non interactive way (debconf).

Debs always had weak validation, but here you're introducing a consistency weakness, which is the second pillar of enterprise packaging. You're not moving the art forward by kicking out its legs.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Not sure I understand your criticism. Debs definitely help compared to how I was doing things before. Adding some form of parameters (eg. the hostname used by some web application) to the package is necessary and I'd rather have in the form of debconf than having to edit a config after installation.

Do you have an alternative?