"app store" for open source Unix?

[Jeremy C. Reed]

On Fri, 9 Apr 2010, Jamie wrote:

> > I do understand the problem. The open source Unix community is so 
> > diverse -- so many platforms, so many APIs, so many different developer 
> > environments, so many opinions, and little money incentive.
> 
> For cross platform, there is "pkgsrc" you might look into it, NetBSD,
> DragonFlyBSD and rumors... some linux's can use pkgsrc.

:) (Yes, I KNOW pkgsrc. I ported it to BSD/OS, I helped port it to 
DragonFly. And I have an entire Linux distro based on pkgsrc which I 
means a pkgsrc-ized glibc, linux the kernel, modutils, netkit, 
vixie-cron, etc ...)

> We have the technology to do all this, but, not everyone uses a unix
> desktop. I for one would be disgusted if I needed a gui or a browser
> to install something.
> 
> Browsing them is a bit of a hassle, I use 'grep' for that, but I guess
> there's something like:
> 
>   make search keyword="blah"

s/keyword/key/

> (I never use that)
> 
> Most of the apps have some kind of URL you can load for more info if you
> need it.

Building from ports (or pkgsrc) is too slow. So I will stop there. 
Reading pkg-descr usually doesn't provide enough detail to know if it 
provides what I want. Visiting each website adds more time (especially 
since websites vary in quality of explanation. For example, when my wife 
wanted a calculator, I ended up installing around seven and when I 
wanted an image viewer I installed over ten. Too much wasted time.

> I do wish there were a safe way to run the make config-recursive and
> have it "really" do it recursively, I wish the build system would test
> for a tty and if no tty, go into batch mode, and I wish it'd email me
> if it needed more from me.  (and give me the chance to conf later one)

I haven't tried it, but what about the BATCH setting used for skipping 
interactive ports?

<snip>

> Which fires up a gadget for me to supply additional info to the package
> being built, and things continue...

Now ... that is just way too much time for me. If I want an application, 
I want to find it and install it within a minute.

  Jeremy C. Reed

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  tr            '#-~'            '\-.-{'