Listaller is a

free Free may refer to: Concept * Freedom, having the ability to do something, without having to obey anyone/anything * Freethought, a position that beliefs should be formed only on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism * Emancipate, to procur ...

computer software installation system (similar to a

package management system A package manager or package-management system is a collection of software tools that automates the process of installing, upgrading, configuring, and removing computer programs for a computer in a consistent manner. A package manager deals w ...

) aimed at making it simple to create a package that can be installed on all

Linux distribution A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one ...

s as well as providing tools and API to make software management on Linux more user-friendly.

History

Listaller was started in December 2007 by

freedesktop.org freedesktop.org (fd.o) is a project to work on interoperability and shared base technology for Free software, free-software desktop environments for the X Window System (X11) and Wayland (display server protocol), Wayland on Linux and other Uni ...

developer Matthias Klumpp as an experimental project to explore the possibility of writing a universal user interface to manage all kinds of Linux software, no matter how it was installed. Therefore, Listaller had backends to manage

Autopackage Autopackage is a free software, free computer package management system aimed at making it simple to create a package that can be installed on all Linux distributions, created by Mike Hearn around 2002. In August 2010, Listaller and Autopackage ...

, LOKI
Mojo
and native distribution packages. The original project provided one user interface to manage all kinds of installed software. Interaction with the native distribution package management was done via an own abstraction layer, which was later replaced by

PackageKit PackageKit is a free and open-source suite of software applications designed to provide a consistent and high-level front end for a number of different package management systems. PackageKit was created by Richard Hughes in 2007, and first intro ...

. Listaller also provided a cross-distribution software installation format which should have made it easier to create packages which run on multiple distributions. The installer part of Listaller was also able to assist in installing

packages. The very first versions were written in

Object Pascal Object Pascal is an extension to the programming language Pascal (programming language), Pascal that provides object-oriented programming (OOP) features such as Class (computer programming), classes and Method (computer programming), methods. ...

. Although the project started as an experiment, it soon evolved to a competitor for

and Mojo. Until 2011, Listaller never made any stable release. With the announcement of

AppStream AppStream is an agreement between major Linux vendors (i.e. Red Hat, Canonical, SUSE, Debian, Mandriva, etc.) to create an infrastructure for application installers on Linux and sharing of metadata. The initiative was started as early as 19-21 Ja ...

a lot of the original Listaller goals would be achieved, so the author decided to change Listaller away from a full software manager to a software installer only and joined forces with the

project. Because Pascal was not considered as ideal language to collaborate with other projects and the project already had spent much time in developing Pascal bindings to third-party libraries, Listaller was rewritten in

Vala Vala or VALA may refer to: Religion and mythology * Vala (Vedic), a demon or a stone cavern in the Hindu scriptures * Völva, also spelled Vala, a priestess in Norse mythology and Norse paganism Fiction * Vala (Middle-earth), an angelic being in ...

with a subset of the original features and the main goal to provide seamless integration with AppStream and PackageKit. Therefore the universal software manager part was removed and the project now focuses on creating a cross-distro format for distribution of binary Linux software. As of Nov 10, 2014 Matthias announced the Limba project. Limba is supposed to be Listaller's next version.

Methodology

Listaller is intended to be used for installing binary, or pre-compiled, versions of non-core applications such as

word processor A word processor (WP) is a device or computer program that provides for input, editing, formatting, and output of text, often with some additional features. Word processor (electronic device), Early word processors were stand-alone devices ded ...

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...

s, and

personal computer game A personal computer game, also known as a PC game or computer game, is a type of video game played on a personal computer (PC) rather than a video game console or arcade machine. Its defining characteristics include: more diverse and user-deter ...

s, rather than core

libraries A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...

and applications such as

operating system shell In computing, a shell is a computer program that exposes an operating system's services to a human user or other programs. In general, operating system shells use either a command-line interface (CLI) or graphical user interface (GUI), depending ...

s. Listaller is not intended to provide support for installing system libraries for security reasons. Listaller is using an own package format, so-called IPK packages (short for Installation package), which are LZMA-compressed signed tarballs. IPK packages contain only small configuration files to modify the setup process. They do not provide their own logic or scripts which are run during install time. All parts of a setup process are handled by Listaller's built-in routines, which make it possible for distributors to modify the setup process of 3rd-party applications to comply to their own policy, if necessary. The key value of Listaller is integration into desktop environments, existing package management tools and distributions. Therefore, the project provides several integration components by default, which make it possible to manage Listaller-installed 3rd-party applications from any software manager which supports

and/or

. At time it is discussed to run all installed 3rd-party tools in a

Sandbox A sandbox is a sandpit, a wide, shallow playground construction to hold sand, often made of wood or plastic. Sandbox or Sand box may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Sandbox (band), a Canadian rock music group * Sandbox ( ...

by default. Programs that use Listaller must also be relocatable, meaning they must be installable to varying directories with a single binary. This makes it possible for Listaller to install software for non-root users into their home directory, although this method has to be enabled explicitly and its use is not encouraged. The Listaller Developer Tools provide tools and documentation for application developers to make their software relocatable.

Listaller and Autopackage

In August 2010 both projects announced they will merge. As consequence of the merge,

abandoned its own package binary package format and all user interfaces to install Autopackage packages. Autopackage tools like BinReloc to create relocatable applications or APBuild are now developed as part of the Listaller project. Reason for merging Autopackage into Listaller was mainly a great lack of developers in both projects so they decided to join forces.

Integration

KDE KDE is an international Free software movement, free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that allow collaborative work on this kind of software. Well-know ...

provides support for Listaller through

Apper Apper (originally named KPackageKit) is a free and open source Linux front-end application for the PackageKit package management service by KDE. Apper also has one main difference compared to the old KPackageKit: Apper can list applications ins ...

, although distributors need to explicitly enable it using a compile-time switch. Support for

GNOME A gnome is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, first introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and later adopted by more recent authors including those of modern fantasy literature. Its characte ...

is currently being developed as part of the GNOME-PackageKit suite. In theory, any distribution which can run PackageKit >= 0.8.6 should be able to provide Listaller support too.

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: ''Desktop'', ''Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All the ...

announced that they will not use Listaller as 3rd-party installer for their Ubuntu Phone, but develop an own, Ubuntu-specific solution instead.Ubuntu dev proposes new package format for mobile apps
/ref>

References

External links