Re: Upgrading without central packaging

[prev] [thread] [next] [lurker] [Date index for 2005/04/23]

From: peter (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: Upgrading without central packaging
Date: 14:16 on 23 Apr 2005
>     apt-get install firefox

As I noted in another thread, I see that as a solution to a problem
that doesn't need to exist. Installing and upgrading applications in a
traditional UNIX environment has become quite hard. So a lot of effort
has been put into making the hard easy. For different reasons, the same
is true on Windows, and they've come up with a different way to make
the hard thing easy.

And on Mac OS, installing applications has always been easy. But the
people writing cross-platform applications have spent a lot of time and
effort coming up with packaging schemes and installers, and so have
transferred both of them over to Mac OS X.

Please, don't do that.

>      1. start a browser (in this case Firefox)
>      2. enter a URL (getfirefox.com)

Try http://macupdate.com/ instead. You can update the rest of the apps you use
at the same time.

>      3. click a link (download)
>      4. wait for the download to finish
>      5. double click an icon (dmg)

Click on the name in the download window.

>      6. drag another icon to the Applications folder

And you get to say WHERE you want it, it doesn't just vanish into the
dark forest of /usr. So when you want to sync up your Mac at work with
the software on your Mac at home you just

	rsync --rsh=ssh home.example.com::/Local /Local

>      7. confirm that I want to replace the old one
>      8. close the Finder window again

Click on the "eject" button next to the volume name.

>      9. select two icons (dmg and mounted volume)
>     10. drag them to Trash

Drag the DMG to "/Local/Installed" so you have a clean copy, and when
you clicked eject you unmounted the DMG and closed the window.

> And after all that hard labour, all that's upgraded is just one program!

http://macupdate.com/ or http://versiontracker.com/

I prefer macupdate, Versiontracker is a bit tarpit-ish.

> As far as I am concerned, Apple's Mac OS X and Microsoft's Windows XP
> are not yet ready for the Desktop. This is too much hard and confusing
> work to confront newbies with. I'm lucky to be a geek and understand the
> entire 10 step procedure!

The 8-step procedure is easier for newbies than "apt-get install firefox".

Generated at 02:00 on 03 May 2005 by mariachi 0.52