Preferred way of installing apps? Vote / Suggest
 

Hi guys.

I am designing a new way of installiing programs under linux, and i need to know which you think would be a better way to install a program, for a newbie, and for an expert who can't be bothered compiling mozilla to setup the old-lady-next-door's computer.

These are my ideas so far:
1) A folder (eg ./firefox-0.8/), that you drag into drag into /Programs (this folder could be extracted out of a tbz2, or whatever, this is up to the packager)
2) A file, that is a *.tbz2 renamed to something else (eg ./firefox-0.8.pgm), and setup so that the default action is to extract it to /Programs automagically
3) This seems to be the most complex:
In the style of Mac OSX, a folder that is disguised as a file, so that clicking on it would execute a script to launch the program. This file/folder could then be dragged into /Programs

Of course, the kde/gnome menu system would base itself off /Programs, so if you installed firefox-0.8 into /Programs/Internet then you would click K Menu, Internet, Mozilla Firefox to run it.

Any other ideas would also be appreciated.

Remember, I am trying to design the SIMPLEST POSSIBLE way of installing programs, to rival BY FAR that of windows, by not even needing an installation, just simple copying, and deleting folders to install / un-install.

Ummm... You mean something like apt-get?

Agreed! You can't do any better than apt-get IMHO

I'm not that much of an apt-get fan. Like the portage system in gentoo better. But to answer aesahaettr, I would say out of the options you give, I like 1) the firefox way with the folder.

No, because a user new to linux, or new to computers does not want to be typing things into a console to install programs. IMO the main programs that one uses should be seperated from the system programs. A new user who just wants to get on with his work doesn't want to know about how many other dependencies are installed alongside the program he uses. Don't get me wrong, I am a big fan of portage, it's the best thing to linux since the kernel, but i'm not designing this system for sysadmins.

What about apt-get/yum married with Synaptic - a gui application with menus and everything.

do you think that would be eaiser than dragging a folder to install it, and deleting to uninstall? forgetting dependencies here, they will be handled automagically by the os. And this is for a user new to linux, who hasn't heard of dependencies (coming from a ms background)