Introducing PackageManagement in Windows 10 • Hacker News Board

Re: Introducing PackageManagement in Windows 10

#161

Post by derefr » Thu, Apr 30, 2015, 1:42 AM UTC

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #50

tomswartz07 wrote: post #26

Perhaps I missed it, but the article doesn't mention this in any way: Windows ABSOLUTELY needs a way to go from 'Fresh Install' to 'Fully upgraded' with minimal interaction. Linux can do this: run `apt-get dist-upgrade` in Ubuntu, and you get all of the most recent updates. However, in Windows, you install 3 updates, restart, install 5 updates, restart, install 110 updates, restart....

>restart This isn't going to happen. MS is tied deeply into restarting due to how it loads libraries and other issues. Unless they write a new OS from scratch and give up on legacy compatibility, well, don't hold your breath.

Even in Linux you've got to restart once, if you update the kernel or somesuch. The problem with Windows is the restarts before the final one, where you need to finish upgrading to version N+1 before the updates taking you to N+2 will even download.

If the updater software could just plan out a patch-graph ("once I do X, then Y will be available, so I'll do Y, and that means Z will be available"), then apply all the updates it had recursively discovered and only restart at the very end, everyone would be happy.

Even though the resulting mechanism wouldn't be very similar at all to Linux's idempotent "just install the latest version of the package, you don't have to take the steps in-between" system, it's the UX that matters.

Re: Introducing PackageManagement in Windows 10

#162

Post by akandiah » Thu, Apr 30, 2015, 2:11 AM UTC

tomswartz07 wrote: post #26

Perhaps I missed it, but the article doesn't mention this in any way: Windows ABSOLUTELY needs a way to go from 'Fresh Install' to 'Fully upgraded' with minimal interaction. Linux can do this: run `apt-get dist-upgrade` in Ubuntu, and you get all of the most recent updates. However, in Windows, you install 3 updates, restart, install 5 updates, restart, install 110 updates, restart....

A lot of the time, restarts are required to remove old versions of files that are still in use. AFAIK, there is no way to remove files that are 'in-use' (and not locked) without having to make an entry in the registry to schedule a deletion on the next reboot.

Re: Introducing PackageManagement in Windows 10

#163

Post by tomc1985 » Thu, Apr 30, 2015, 2:15 AM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #125

SwellJoe wrote: post #122

I was going to say, "Finally! They've gotten it right after all these years of sucking so hard as to be unusable on servers." But, I did some digging into the github for OneGet ( https://github.com/OneGet/oneget )... And, they haven't gotten it right. Windows package management still sucks so hard as to make the OS unusable on servers (and annoying as hell on the desktop). This is seemingly a simple-minded downloader…

Is application dependency management in windows normally a problem? Apart from the odd runtime, I expect Windows applications to be pretty much self contained, and not dependent on any system-wide libraries (which is a huge benefit I think). For development it's a different story, there you can have several levels of dependencies, but there NuGet at least appears at least as powerful as similar options on other platf…

Just want to note that Windows has a whole mess of dependency-management, much of it provided by the service that handles those MSI installer files.

Re: Introducing PackageManagement in Windows 10

#164

Post by ossreality » Thu, Apr 30, 2015, 2:15 AM UTC

simplexion wrote: post #156

bkeroack wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> PowerShell never just works. That statement is a bit much. I agree the default execution policy is annoying, but can you blame MS for being a little overzealous given their history? Some aspects of Powershell are actually pretty nice. Ever want to use a real hashmap in bash for example? Or easy JSON construction/manipulation without hacks like jq? PS has all that.

I have had so many people tell me how fantastic PowerShell is. Not a single one of them was ever a *nix user. PowerShell is getting better with a tab completion of sorts but it is still a headache to figure out commands without web search. I try to force myself to use PowerShell as often as possible, but continuously find myself going back to a GUI. I have the opposite problem when using Linux.

I hate Windows. I spent 90% of my life in Unix.

Powershell is fantastic. I'm not joking. Do you have any actual criticisms?

Re: Introducing PackageManagement in Windows 10

#165

Post by ekianjo » Thu, Apr 30, 2015, 3:04 AM UTC

mdlowman wrote: post #155

ioddly wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is application dependency management in windows normally a problem? It has its own name. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DLL_Hell

DLL hell certainly used to be a big issue in Windows. But I disagree that it remains a major factor; Windows apps are increasingly bundled and Windows system functions that used to be the cause of these issues, like DirectX, are packaged as redistributables that allow side-by-side installs.

> like DirectX, are packaged as redistributables that allow side-by-side installs.

No wonder everything gets so messy in the registry :)

Re: Introducing PackageManagement in Windows 10

#166

Post by j_m_b » Thu, Apr 30, 2015, 3:12 AM UTC

SwellJoe wrote: post #122

I was going to say, "Finally! They've gotten it right after all these years of sucking so hard as to be unusable on servers." But, I did some digging into the github for OneGet ( https://github.com/OneGet/oneget )... And, they haven't gotten it right. Windows package management still sucks so hard as to make the OS unusable on servers (and annoying as hell on the desktop). This is seemingly a simple-minded downloader…

So too little too late?

Re: Introducing PackageManagement in Windows 10

#167

Post by PeterLindt14 » Thu, Apr 30, 2015, 3:36 AM UTC

SwellJoe wrote: post #122

I was going to say, "Finally! They've gotten it right after all these years of sucking so hard as to be unusable on servers." But, I did some digging into the github for OneGet ( https://github.com/OneGet/oneget )... And, they haven't gotten it right. Windows package management still sucks so hard as to make the OS unusable on servers (and annoying as hell on the desktop). This is seemingly a simple-minded downloader…

Haters gonna hate. Where comes all your frustrations from? I've never had any issues with dependencies on Windows. If some C++ redestributables are missing, they are commonly installed by the installer. .NET Framework the same.

For development NuGet.

Re: Introducing PackageManagement in Windows 10

#168

Post by PeterLindt14 » Thu, Apr 30, 2015, 3:38 AM UTC

mdlowman wrote: post #155

ioddly wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is application dependency management in windows normally a problem? It has its own name. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DLL_Hell

DLL hell certainly used to be a big issue in Windows. But I disagree that it remains a major factor; Windows apps are increasingly bundled and Windows system functions that used to be the cause of these issues, like DirectX, are packaged as redistributables that allow side-by-side installs.

Exactly, thank you.

Re: Introducing PackageManagement in Windows 10

#169

Post by deevus » Thu, Apr 30, 2015, 3:56 AM UTC

It's not exactly a package manager (it doesn't do proper dependency management) but for development I absolutely love Scoop[1]. It makes it so simple to get tools for Windows command line without Cygwin.

Disclaimer: I'm a contributer

[1]: http://scoop.sh/

Re: Introducing PackageManagement in Windows 10

#170

Post by tempestn » Thu, Apr 30, 2015, 4:30 AM UTC

mreiland wrote: post #143

Someone1234 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that scenario I'd never have just a single server, be it Linux, Windows, BSD, or anything else. Being in a situation where you're completely unable to restart a machine without losing money, is being in a situation where you're living on a knife edge regardless. A single hardware failure and you're in deep trouble. I've been in exactly that situation (the entire company rested on a single Ubuntu server), it was re…

his point remains. being forced to run 2 servers so your server doesn't go down once/month is a bit ridiculous. No, it isn't untenable, yes you can work around it, but that's a problem that shouldn't need to be worked around.

Agreed. Up to a certain point, a single server is going to be considerably more cost effective than multiple machines, as well as requiring less devOps time. (Especially nowadays when you can easily lease a server with, say, 16 cores and 48GB of RAM.) I can recall having to restart our production server exactly once in the past 12 months for a kernel update. Every month would be an irritation for sure.