Ask HN: Why is installing things still so cumbersome?

2 pointszweicoder8y ago2 comments

On Ubuntu every time I want to install something I have to: 1) Google the installation instructions for whatever I'm trying to install 2) Collate all the steps I'm supposed to run 3) Copy all those instructions lines by line into the terminal, which most of the time boils down to adding a ppa / key, running curl to get some other script / binary etc

This quickly gets repetitive especially when setting up several computers. I apologize in advance if it's a silly question, but what's stopping our system package managers from cutting out all these steps? Why can't we apt-get / brew install everything yet? Or why doesn't websites just give a `install.sh` file with all the relevant instructions in it?

Relevant side note: I'm collating a bunch of these install scripts over at https://github.com/zweicoder/asd and https://github.com/zweicoder/asd-modules - very simple and preliminary but would love more feedback and input on this issue before I spend more time on it

2 comments

brudgers8y ago

I run Linux and installing stuff is often a bit painful. Yesterday, I was looking at Pharo and Squeak. Both are shipped as binaries and both require manually adding libraries (386) before installing on a 64bit OS.

It was then that I sort of got the BSD idea of just installing everything as source code. The time spent compiling might be roughly equivalent to the time spent trying to find information and go through the steps for installing a binary...and I hate to think about how many times has 'apt install' has installed a really old version of some tool.

Anyway, I have a bash script that installs my significant tools. But it's my script for my tools and I don't expect someone else's would be as good nor would mine be as good as someone else's.

Good luck.

dozzie8y ago

> [...] most of the time [installation instruction] boils down to adding a ppa / key, running curl to get some other script / binary etc

> Why can't we apt-get / brew install everything yet?

And you think this awful PPA of yours is what exactly?

> Or why doesn't websites just give a `install.sh` file with all the relevant instructions in it?

Try writing such install.sh. But remember that it has to work on Red Hat, Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, Arch, Gentoo, FreeBSD, NetBSD, MacOS, and Cygwin, each with different package manager, paths, and major versions of your dependencies.

> This quickly gets repetitive especially when setting up several computers.

Which is why a skilled sysadmin provides his own repositories along with the ones from his distribution.

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