Free Software Building and Packaging for Windows

#1

Post by T-A » Sat, Sep 05, 2015, 6:52 PM UTC

Free Software Building and Packaging for Windows
win-builds.org

Re: Free Software Building and Packaging for Windows

#2

Post by BoppreH » Sat, Sep 05, 2015, 8:51 PM UTC

If you are interested in this, also check out https://ninite.com .

Nowadays with adware-including installers and phony download links, any solution to the packaging problem in Windows is welcome.

Re: Free Software Building and Packaging for Windows

#3

Post by m3Lith » Sat, Sep 05, 2015, 9:03 PM UTC

Also https://chocolatey.org/ for software. Though they might not always have the latest versions.

Re: Free Software Building and Packaging for Windows

#4

Post by toni » Sat, Sep 05, 2015, 9:10 PM UTC

There is also Npackd[1][2] with the ability to locally host your own repository[3].

[1] https://github.com/tim-lebedkov/npackd

[2] https://npackd.appspot.com/

[3] https://github.com/tim-lebedkov/npackd/wiki/RepositoryHostin...

Re: Free Software Building and Packaging for Windows

#5

Post by krapp » Sat, Sep 05, 2015, 9:16 PM UTC

Am I wrong in thinking that basically, the best package manager available for Windows is Steam?

Re: Free Software Building and Packaging for Windows

#6

Post by mappu » Sat, Sep 05, 2015, 9:34 PM UTC

krapp wrote: post #5

Am I wrong in thinking that basically, the best package manager available for Windows is Steam?

Steam is proprietary, closed-source, has a single for-profit vendor, uses closed communication protocols (e.g. for Friends) preventing an open reimplementation, and there's no automated way of submitting new packages. Not to mention the scandals where it read through your browser history.

The download UI is nice, it does use plain http/s for package delivery, and it has a large install base. But i definitely do not think it is the best package manager available on Windows.

Re: Free Software Building and Packaging for Windows

#7

Post by mappu » Sat, Sep 05, 2015, 9:37 PM UTC

Saying 'runs on Cygwin' is a little obtuse when these packages are built with mingw-w64 to run on win32. The packages won't understand cygwin paths nor cygwin symlinks, and good luck linking to these libraries from a cygwin program.

EDIT: Oh, i think the copy intended to mean 'can be cross-compiled from a cygwin environment'. Leaving comment for posterity.

Re: Free Software Building and Packaging for Windows

#8

Post by something123 » Sat, Sep 05, 2015, 9:50 PM UTC

So if say boost is updated - is it going to break by VS solution and I'm going to have to go manually update the version numbers in all my projects?

Re: Free Software Building and Packaging for Windows

#9

Post by krapp » Sat, Sep 05, 2015, 10:07 PM UTC

mappu wrote: post #6

krapp wrote: post #5

Am I wrong in thinking that basically, the best package manager available for Windows is Steam?

Steam is proprietary, closed-source, has a single for-profit vendor, uses closed communication protocols (e.g. for Friends) preventing an open reimplementation, and there's no automated way of submitting new packages. Not to mention the scandals where it read through your browser history. The download UI is nice, it does use plain http/s for package delivery, and it has a large install base. But i definitely do not t…

Faults aside, I think Steam's model is worth considering in terms of what features a package manager might need to succeed on Windows. Everything else posted here seems like it wants to replicate the Linux experience in Windows, and I suspect that would have limited appeal.

Re: Free Software Building and Packaging for Windows

#10

Post by kanetkarster » Sat, Sep 05, 2015, 10:57 PM UTC

krapp wrote: post #5

Am I wrong in thinking that basically, the best package manager available for Windows is Steam?

Chocolatey is pretty good