[plug] Installer

[Andrew Pamment]

On Mon, 24 Feb 2003 15:51:57 +0800, Cameron Patrick 
<cameron at patrick.wattle.id.au> wrote:

> On Mon, Feb 24, 2003 at 03:46:21PM +0800, Dene Staples wrote:
>
> | What if all  programmers have a bit in their progs which lists the
> | earliest (or only) dependencies they work with. The installer reads 
> this
> | list and goes to linux depositories, downloads them AND installs them
> | along with the programme. For those not on the net, perhaps some
> | linux-based firm in the main population centres could have cd or dvd
> | collections to purchase at cost?
>
> What you are describing already exists.  The automatic downloader is
> apt-get and the 7-CD collection of pre-compiled software is called
> "Debian".

Gentoo also does this with it's portage system, it's a bit slower than 
debian because it downloads, compiles and installs the program you want 
(and all it's dependencys) it doesn't have all the rules about what 
licenses you can use as debian has, and is generally more up to date. I 
mention gentoo because one of the packages it has is the nVidia driver.

The draw back is as it downloads and compiles *everything* so it's 
recommended that you have broadband, but I have gentoo on two machines (a 
pc and an ibook) and i only have 56K dialup.

if you're looking for help, i'd be more than happy to help where i can, via 
email or in person

Andrew