Couldn"t see this elsewhere, but post a link if you do find it.
One of the main things students and general users will do is install stuff. And mostly via the command line with tools like apt or aptitude.
One of the big issues is the compatibility with the Raspberry Pi being on ARM (afaik architecture is Armel?).
Does anyone know of a site that details how to create a package repository (that apt / aptitude can pick up) website that could be tailored for RPi verified packages.
Something like this here…
In addition to RPi – this would be subdivided by Distro (Debian / Fedora etc.).
The url link can then be baked into the distro images that are available for download, making it easier to find verified, working packages.
Cheers,
D
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nick.mccloud
- Posts: 804
- Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2012 4:18 pm
Re: Custom Package Index for RPi
For debian you can search http://www.debian.org/distrib/packages - apart from hardware specific items, most Armel packages should work subject to performance limitations.
As more Pi's get out in to the wild I'm sure we can start compiling a list of known good & useful packages.
As more Pi's get out in to the wild I'm sure we can start compiling a list of known good & useful packages.
Re: Custom Package Index for RPi
It's a good idea, and it's a well understood technology, just not by me and you
As I understand it, you would need two repositories, one for Debian and one for Fedora, and more for any other distro, but I may just be behind the times. I believe that all you need is a simple web server serving static pages and files. The technology is in generating those pages and files.
In order to get a repository of verified working packages, you would need a repository manager who could take the time to proactively verify them and keep them up-to-date as new distro versions are released.. Maybe someone will volunteer.
As I understand it, you would need two repositories, one for Debian and one for Fedora, and more for any other distro, but I may just be behind the times. I believe that all you need is a simple web server serving static pages and files. The technology is in generating those pages and files.
In order to get a repository of verified working packages, you would need a repository manager who could take the time to proactively verify them and keep them up-to-date as new distro versions are released.. Maybe someone will volunteer.
Re: Custom Package Index for RPi
mrtenchy said:
Couldn"t see this elsewhere, but post a link if you do find it.
Not sure if this answers your question but search for a thread with the words hard float armhf for details of how someone is building a RasPi specific repository to use the hradware floating point
Couldn"t see this elsewhere, but post a link if you do find it.
Not sure if this answers your question but search for a thread with the words hard float armhf for details of how someone is building a RasPi specific repository to use the hradware floating point
Re: Custom Package Index for RPi
Cool! So I am not mad and barking up the wrong tree (pun somewhat intended)…
I know now (with the wonders of google) we could use existing Debian repositories and filter for armel plus the desired distro, but thats only really going to work for the big-boys out there; Debian, Fedora etc.
I think a RPi centric repository should cater for all distro's that work on it (reel off list of the obscure).
We would not have to worry about the architecture (always armel…), and it provides the users a really easy way find stuff that will work instead of the tinkering involved. I foresee a lot of non-native packages being converted for the armel specifically to work on the RPi… things like Transport Tycoon!.
This would make it easy to bake into the distro images, and could be vetted / verified by the RPi community… as rurwin suggested. Maybe this is where the extra cool stuff comes in as a 5 star rating attached to packages.
rpi-openttd.deb – Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe -
We could use something like http://pulpproject.org which could be frigged to use their rest API linked up to a website...
What sort of size could we be looking at in terms of disk space to store, and network usage to push out to the world. (Take 250,000 RPi users worldwide as a under-guestimate).
D
I know now (with the wonders of google) we could use existing Debian repositories and filter for armel plus the desired distro, but thats only really going to work for the big-boys out there; Debian, Fedora etc.
I think a RPi centric repository should cater for all distro's that work on it (reel off list of the obscure).
We would not have to worry about the architecture (always armel…), and it provides the users a really easy way find stuff that will work instead of the tinkering involved. I foresee a lot of non-native packages being converted for the armel specifically to work on the RPi… things like Transport Tycoon!.
This would make it easy to bake into the distro images, and could be vetted / verified by the RPi community… as rurwin suggested. Maybe this is where the extra cool stuff comes in as a 5 star rating attached to packages.
rpi-openttd.deb – Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe -
We could use something like http://pulpproject.org which could be frigged to use their rest API linked up to a website...
What sort of size could we be looking at in terms of disk space to store, and network usage to push out to the world. (Take 250,000 RPi users worldwide as a under-guestimate).
D
Re: Custom Package Index for RPi
In addition to above I am trying to find a API (preferable REST) that can interrogate package repositories and create a website / app store for the RPi.
The nearest I can find is Pulp ... pulpproject.org But this is only for YUM (until v2).
Is it OK to use YUM for the RPi or must we use apt / aptitude?
As a non-linux user I am getting use to all this malarkey - but can see that students (the target market) are not all going to understand the package/repo way of installing (even if it is amazing!).
A simple website they can access, click a link that dl's a program would make them explore the system further than the limited access they are given in the classroom.
The nearest I can find is Pulp ... pulpproject.org But this is only for YUM (until v2).
Is it OK to use YUM for the RPi or must we use apt / aptitude?
As a non-linux user I am getting use to all this malarkey - but can see that students (the target market) are not all going to understand the package/repo way of installing (even if it is amazing!).
A simple website they can access, click a link that dl's a program would make them explore the system further than the limited access they are given in the classroom.
Re: Custom Package Index for RPi
mrtenchy said:
In addition to above I am trying to find a API (preferable REST) that can interrogate package repositories and create a website / app store for the RPi.
The nearest I can find is Pulp ... pulpproject.org But this is only for YUM (until v2).
Is it OK to use YUM for the RPi or must we use apt / aptitude?
As a non-linux user I am getting use to all this malarkey - but can see that students (the target market) are not all going to understand the package/repo way of installing (even if it is amazing!).
A simple website they can access, click a link that dl's a program would make them explore the system further than the limited access they are given in the classroom.
Yum is the package manager for Fedora, so it will work on a Pi installed with Fedora.
For debian and debian based you use apt
In addition to above I am trying to find a API (preferable REST) that can interrogate package repositories and create a website / app store for the RPi.
The nearest I can find is Pulp ... pulpproject.org But this is only for YUM (until v2).
Is it OK to use YUM for the RPi or must we use apt / aptitude?
As a non-linux user I am getting use to all this malarkey - but can see that students (the target market) are not all going to understand the package/repo way of installing (even if it is amazing!).
A simple website they can access, click a link that dl's a program would make them explore the system further than the limited access they are given in the classroom.
Yum is the package manager for Fedora, so it will work on a Pi installed with Fedora.
For debian and debian based you use apt
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Max
Re: Custom Package Index for RPi
mrtenchy said:
In addition to above I am trying to find a API (preferable REST) that can interrogate package repositories and create a website / app store for the RPi.
For Debian based distros simply download the file named Packages(.gz), parse that and stick the data in your own local database.
E.g.: http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debia.....ackages.gz
apt does the same.
There are no servers interrogated when you do a search, it simply searches the list downloaded earlier locally.
In addition to above I am trying to find a API (preferable REST) that can interrogate package repositories and create a website / app store for the RPi.
For Debian based distros simply download the file named Packages(.gz), parse that and stick the data in your own local database.
E.g.: http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debia.....ackages.gz
apt does the same.
There are no servers interrogated when you do a search, it simply searches the list downloaded earlier locally.
Re: Custom Package Index for RPi
Out of interest, what happens if I take one of the stock rpi distro builds and do apt-get install <xyz>? Does it try to fetch from anywhere? (or apt-get source <xyz>)
Or do you just get what's on the SD card?
Or do you just get what's on the SD card?
Re: Custom Package Index for RPi
You get nothing unless you are connected to the Internet.
You will have a database of repositories on your SD card.
apt-get will go through the list of repositories until it finds the package you are requesting, then download it from there.
There is far far more available then would fit on your SD card...
You will have a database of repositories on your SD card.
apt-get will go through the list of repositories until it finds the package you are requesting, then download it from there.
There is far far more available then would fit on your SD card...
Re: Custom Package Index for RPi
Ok,
I could scrape the .gz data from a load of repositories, but say I link to a apt-mirror repo, and a yum repo, and for arguments sake AN Other repo... is the only way currently to get the package info (url, name, id, versions, history, comments) for all of these to do some file-based interrogation!?
I was hoping that somewhere there was a means to easily tap into this data (library or something) that could provide the info properly. This way a unified interface, tweaked and filtered based on your RPi distro can be made that looks no different for anyone...
Maybe this is simplifying the issue which is actually a little complex for a reason...
RPi App Store - on hold... ...
D
I could scrape the .gz data from a load of repositories, but say I link to a apt-mirror repo, and a yum repo, and for arguments sake AN Other repo... is the only way currently to get the package info (url, name, id, versions, history, comments) for all of these to do some file-based interrogation!?
I was hoping that somewhere there was a means to easily tap into this data (library or something) that could provide the info properly. This way a unified interface, tweaked and filtered based on your RPi distro can be made that looks no different for anyone...
Maybe this is simplifying the issue which is actually a little complex for a reason...
RPi App Store - on hold... ...
D
Re: Custom Package Index for RPi
Trying to think if you mean something like the Ubuntu Software Center. Nice GUI, good search facility. Any package you select it displays a wealth of information about. Much like the Android App Store.
Personally - I hate it. I Google the package I want, then use apt-get to install it...
Personally - I hate it. I Google the package I want, then use apt-get to install it...
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Max
Re: Custom Package Index for RPi
mrtenchy said:
is the only way currently to get the package info (url, name, id, versions, history, comments) for all of these to do some file-based interrogation!?
I was hoping that somewhere there was a means to easily tap into this data (library or something) that could provide the info properly.
That is indeed how apt works.
When you do "apt-get update" it downloads the Packages files and sticks them in /var/lib/apt/lists
And when you do "apt-cache search something" it searches those files.
Don't know if there is a library, but for performance reasons you might want to convert the Packages plaintext format to an indexed SQL database anyway.
is the only way currently to get the package info (url, name, id, versions, history, comments) for all of these to do some file-based interrogation!?
I was hoping that somewhere there was a means to easily tap into this data (library or something) that could provide the info properly.
That is indeed how apt works.
When you do "apt-get update" it downloads the Packages files and sticks them in /var/lib/apt/lists
And when you do "apt-cache search something" it searches those files.
Don't know if there is a library, but for performance reasons you might want to convert the Packages plaintext format to an indexed SQL database anyway.
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Raspberry wino
- Posts: 49
- Joined: Mon Mar 05, 2012 11:48 am
Re: Custom Package Index for RPi
Couldn't this be easily achieved by having a wiki page (or managed controlled page) with links to the repositories where you can download from? This avoids having to have a server to organise and look after but means you can still control what's good for the Pi.
Re: Custom Package Index for RPi
Either way someone has to manage a list of packages. And you need to drive people to d/l them and also rate them easily.
putting them on a wiki /cms means its a bit easier to alter the list (but not linked properly to an actual repository) and easier to set up.
However an automatic/near realtime (Or a set polling time of say 5 min) that reacts to changes in repositories and can store the info, ratings etc. surely is a better system and manages itself in terms of obtaining the lists, storing the data, url's and ratings is ideal.
I was going along the path of a few libs that can poll a list of repositories that people / the foundation have set up that have RPi only packages (this is the easy part of the puzzle) and obtain its information. This then gets stored in a mySQL db (other rdbms are available) which also stores alongside it verified, rating and comment values.
I'm trying to think longer term with differing hardware options (RPi Model A/B + any changes etc.) and make it a near self-sustaining option.
This can then easily get interrogated by a web front end / anyone to provide a decent UI to it.
Kids grow up with App Stores, and although teaching them linux commands is very useful, actually being able to search and find a program that they need without worrying about compatibility issues is essential... It's the premis behind App Stores. fi the OS/hardware and offer an easy way to get stuff!
D
putting them on a wiki /cms means its a bit easier to alter the list (but not linked properly to an actual repository) and easier to set up.
However an automatic/near realtime (Or a set polling time of say 5 min) that reacts to changes in repositories and can store the info, ratings etc. surely is a better system and manages itself in terms of obtaining the lists, storing the data, url's and ratings is ideal.
I was going along the path of a few libs that can poll a list of repositories that people / the foundation have set up that have RPi only packages (this is the easy part of the puzzle) and obtain its information. This then gets stored in a mySQL db (other rdbms are available) which also stores alongside it verified, rating and comment values.
I'm trying to think longer term with differing hardware options (RPi Model A/B + any changes etc.) and make it a near self-sustaining option.
This can then easily get interrogated by a web front end / anyone to provide a decent UI to it.
Kids grow up with App Stores, and although teaching them linux commands is very useful, actually being able to search and find a program that they need without worrying about compatibility issues is essential... It's the premis behind App Stores. fi the OS/hardware and offer an easy way to get stuff!
D
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nick.mccloud
- Posts: 804
- Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2012 4:18 pm
Re: Custom Package Index for RPi
mrtenchy said:
Kids grow up with App Stores, and although teaching them linux commands is very useful, actually being able to search and find a program that they need without worrying about compatibility issues is essential... It's the premis behind App Stores. fi the OS/hardware and offer an easy way to get stuff!
And this is why the RPi has had to be created - everything is TOOOOO easy and they stop thinking.
Sure, a list of decent working software would be a good thing. But typing a couple of commands at the prompt to install software is exactly the sort of task that would be useful for peeps to know.
Kids grow up with App Stores, and although teaching them linux commands is very useful, actually being able to search and find a program that they need without worrying about compatibility issues is essential... It's the premis behind App Stores. fi the OS/hardware and offer an easy way to get stuff!
And this is why the RPi has had to be created - everything is TOOOOO easy and they stop thinking.
Sure, a list of decent working software would be a good thing. But typing a couple of commands at the prompt to install software is exactly the sort of task that would be useful for peeps to know.