Guest post by 0install 2.0 is out today. Zero Install is a decentralised cross-platform software installation system, allowing software developers to publish programs directly from their own websites, while still supporting shared libraries, automatic updates, dependency handling and digital signatures. It complements, rather than replaces, the OS’ package management. Departing from its traditional use of installing desktop applications, many of the new features were driven by requirements from the Ryppl project, which is using 0install as the package manager in a modular build system for C++ projects.
I use ninite a lot and wanted to see if this was similar or better. However, the download from http://0install.net/install-windows.html didn’t start. I will try again later.
And it feels REALLY counterintuitive to download an installer from a website/product called 0install
The download worked fine for me. But so far (at least on Windows) I’m not impressed at all. The “catalog” has a bare handful of programs, several of which are already available via Ninite. The only advantage I see over the latter service is the ability to run the program before downloading. However, that’s a pretty slim advantage until the catalog is expanded beyond a few games and random PC tools.
Clicked the link again from another browser and another internetconnection and still no download after 20 seconds. I am not going to use any “package manager” that cannot even get itself installed on my system
I don’t blame you; like I said I was far from impressed. I do like the concept (in fact I would love to see something like that for Haiku) but the implementation so far is just not good at all.
The site hosting the Windows version seems to be having trouble. However, there’s a mirror here:
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/zero-install/0install/1.14… zero-install-1.14.2.exe (SourceForge)
Thanks for the mirror, but I saw that version 1.14 was there just 1 hour ago and hasn’t been downloaded by anyone (you put it there especially for me?)
All newer versions seem only for Linux, so it seems clear where the focus of this project is.
And again, a zero-installer that requires an installer and cannot even provide that simply screams “stay away, we don’t want you as a user”
Just installed it anyway (lunchbreak) and what I saw was a nice intro video that showed me all I needed to know.
then I pressed “Refresh list” and nothing showed up. I tried a few more times but still nothing happened (except for “Loading catalog from server…” of course)
I give up
I’ve also linked it from the front page. It still says zero downloads now, so I guess sf.net stats don’t update in real-time.
The Windows version generally lags by a month or two, although it also has extra features (e.g. the catalog stuff). It’s not quite the same as the POSIX version, although it shares some of the code and can process the same packages.
Many installers (pip, easy_install, cabal, maven, etc) work this way, requiring you to install the installer before you can use it.
There was a project to change that (dynamically generating an installer for the user’s platform), but it’s not ready:
http://0install.net/0bootstrap.html
0install probably mostly makes sense where you’ve got a lot of packages to install. For example, current users include Ryppl (managing hundreds of C++ modules), Sugar (desktop environment) and ROX (desktop environment). Or, if you have lots of versions (e.g Armagetron publishing frequent snapshot builds).
“Other people did it” is not a good reason for something named “zero install” to have an installer. Though someone who thinks like this being involved with the project could be.
Well, the original plan (back in 2003) was that 0install would come pre-installed with your Linux distribution. Programs distributed this way would then be zero install.
In a similar way, “zero install” web-applications still require an install if your computer didn’t come with a web browser…
But renaming the project after ten years doesn’t seem like a good use of limited volunteer time. Besides, if it becomes pre-installed by default in future, then we’d have to rename it back again…
“Zero install” refers to the stuff it runs – once you have Zero Install, you can run Zero Install feeds (/packages) without any installation step for those applications.
Of course, there’s a feed for Zero Install itself ( http://0install.net/2007/interfaces/ZeroInstall.xml ). But that’s not going to do you much good until you have a copy of Zero Install to launch it with.
Compare with RPM – if your OS doesn’t come with it, you need to install RPM and then install the packages you want (1 further install step for each package you want).
If your OS doesn’t come with Zero Install, you need to install it and then you can run any zero install feed (0 further install steps, ever).