Is there an easy way to create portable apps, perhaps using apt-get?

roystonlodge · 12-10-2009, 04:40 PM

Here's my dilemma:

I'm using Debian Squeeze on an XO laptop, which has only 256 megs of ram and only 1gb of storage space.

For a commander-like file manager, I'd like to use the very ancient emelfm (not emelfm2).

Problem is, even when I add a woody or etch archive to my apt.sources file, I get error messages that emelfm requires obsolete dependencies which would interfere with my system.

So, is there an easy way that I could install emelfm and its ancient dependencies in its own folder, perhaps in /opt, where it cannot interfere with the rest of my system?

(BTW: I'm only using emelfm as one example. There have been other times where the ability to install something as a portable app would have been very useful to me.)

jefro · 12-10-2009, 05:55 PM

Edited.

I was going to suggest MC but I guess that is still not what you want.

bigrigdriver · 12-10-2009, 09:03 PM

Quote:

So, is there an easy way that I could install emelfm and its ancient dependencies in its own folder, perhaps in /opt, where it cannot interfere with the rest of my system?

Not so much an easy way, but an alternate way.

Download the source files for the application and it's dependencies. Run "./configure -help" to get a list of configuration options. In those options you will find options that allow you to specify where to install things, such as where to put the executable, libs, etc. It will, without doubt, take some trial and error to get it all worked out.

Do some google searching for "alternate installation prefixes" for additional reading on the subject.

Valery Reznic · 12-11-2009, 03:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roystonlodge

Here's my dilemma:

I'm using Debian Squeeze on an XO laptop, which has only 256 megs of ram and only 1gb of storage space.

For a commander-like file manager, I'd like to use the very ancient emelfm (not emelfm2).

Problem is, even when I add a woody or etch archive to my apt.sources file, I get error messages that emelfm requires obsolete dependencies which would interfere with my system.

So, is there an easy way that I could install emelfm and its ancient dependencies in its own folder, perhaps in /opt, where it cannot interfere with the rest of my system?

(BTW: I'm only using emelfm as one example. There have been other times where the ability to install something as a portable app would have been very useful to me.)

If way suggested by bigrigdriver doesn't work (It's not always easy to build ancient software on modern Linux - gcc now is a lot stricter) you can try following:
- Install on the spare box or in the VM Linux version on which your program can be installed without to much fuss.
- Install your program
- Use statifier (http://statifier.sf.com) or Ermine (http://magicErmine,com) to create self-containing executable.

Then just copy it to the target system - it should work.

Both statifier and Ermine pack into self-containing exe original executable and all it's shared library.
Statifier is licensed under GPLv2+, Ermine is commercial.
On the other hand statifed executable don't like too much system with memory randomization, but ermine-packed behave well on those systems

knudfl · 12-11-2009, 01:52 PM

Emelfm-0.9.2 will compile in 20 seconds with e.g. gcc-4.4.1.
( One bug : replace po/cs.po with an empty file, cs.po ).

You will need these small packages from Debian Lenny :
libglib1.2ldbl, libglib1.2-dev,
libgtk1.2, libgtk1.2-dev, libgtk1.2-common,
.. total 2.4 MB.

The '-dev' packages ( 1.3 MB ) can afterwards be removed.
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