Self Contained Applications

Forum: water cooler
Topic: Self Contained Applications
started by: roberts

Posted by roberts on Feb. 15 2007,01:43

I created the UCI, mounted commpressed self contained, applicaitons for DSL a very long time ago.

Today I read about the exciting break through technology offered by Klik

Klik cmg? A compressed mounted self contained application.

I strongly believe in this concept. The concept of self contained applications are rooted in RISC OS. The current MAC OS uses this very concept; application directories.

With DSL small size and targeted small memory space, I compressed the self contained application and made them mount and unmountable. Truly the FIRST "un-package" for DSL/Linux.

Also of note is the ROX Desktop which uses application directories.

I am glad to see the concept is spreading.

Posted by mikshaw on Feb. 15 2007,03:35

I assume you're talking about this:
< http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=07/02/09/0859248 >

I read that yesterday and made a "ppppth" sound with my lips. I thought calling it "unique" was rather presumptuous.
Almost posted, but i didn't feel like being an "anonymous coward" nor did I want to bother signing up =)

Anyway, the idea of being portable across other distros is appealing, although I don't believe it to be true (no way to know what is available from one distro to the next).

There's also the limit of 8 simultaneous packages...that's so last year =o)

Posted by humpty on Feb. 25 2007,20:38

i hope one day all apps will be this way.

there's still the problem of dependencies and dynamically linked
libraries. we can't expect statically linked apps to lug their own o.s's with them so perhaps a standard for a minimum library set is called for? a sort of win32 for linux?

(i just hope everything doesn't end up as java).

Posted by roberts on Feb. 25 2007,23:14

Yes, I wish the LSB would establish a minimum set of libraries as the core. Everything else as application directories, i.e., self contained.

But the more I read, the more the major distributions are rejecting this idea. Seem protecting their "IP", i.e., package managers is more important than a common good.

And those who try to implement are not that popular, e.g., GoboLinux

Maybe I would feel more at home with a RISC OS machine, or even MAC OSX. But I am too old to change now.

I wonder how well uci and "stow" would work for DSL?

Posted by meltdown_override on Mar. 08 2007,04:05

I've been thinking of doing something similar with a media player. Of coarse there would be an extremly small kernel with only the supports needed for the operation of the xinelike player. The xterm would be integrated within the kernel. Has this been done?

Posted by roberts on Mar. 27 2007,19:27

I was recently going through my sources and noticed that I had compiled the cloop with support for up to 128 devices. I guess I was too lazy to test beyond 64 so that is all the devices that I setup. Or was it the inodes I was worrying about. Anyway, DSL, has plenty of room for self contained mountable applications.