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posted by azrael on Tuesday October 28 2014, @06:49PM   Printer-friendly
from the yet-another-package-manager dept.

Windows 10 will include a package manager as part of the command line tools provided by PowerShell.

This tool, named OneGet allows the user to manage a list of repositories (including Chocolatey repos) and install software packages. The command line tool is developed in the open under the Apache License as the development of the project was moved to GitHub after community feedback was deemed too "overwhelming" for CodePlex. The contributions don't appear to be very open at the moment.

How-To-Geek published a detailed exploration of tool in its current state if you are looking for a more detailed explanation of what OneGet does and how it does it.

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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by VLM on Tuesday October 28 2014, @06:55PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 28 2014, @06:55PM (#110943)

    does it support systemd?

    (sorry couldn't resist)

    • (Score: 1) by dime on Tuesday October 28 2014, @07:10PM

      by dime (1163) on Tuesday October 28 2014, @07:10PM (#110948)

      If by support, you mean is.

      Systemd will soon integrate {package, bios, mbr, life} management.

      The motto is of the package manager is "what do you want to install today? just kidding, we already did that by pulling the entire repo tree in as a dependency"

  • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 28 2014, @07:18PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday October 28 2014, @07:18PM (#110950)

    I'm really wondering, when will Windows really be ready for the desktop?

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 2) by francois.barbier on Tuesday October 28 2014, @09:26PM

      by francois.barbier (651) on Tuesday October 28 2014, @09:26PM (#110982)

      When will Linux be ready for the desktop?
      When will Windows be ready for the command line?
      Who will be the first?

      Interesting times...

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by tempest on Tuesday October 28 2014, @07:18PM

    by tempest (3050) on Tuesday October 28 2014, @07:18PM (#110951)

    I'm skeptical Windows 10 will do everything required to improve on Windows 7, but this is something I can get into. I always thought Microsoft missed the big picture with Windows Update. Instead of a MS specific system, they should have made a framework all software could hook into for updates. Instead we have nagging crap like Java, Firefox (which is at least quiet now) and Flash among many many more, all with their own error prone update systems.

    I wonder how the back end is implemented, and if this will have some ridiculous code signing requirement.

    • (Score: 1) by Entropy on Tuesday October 28 2014, @07:51PM

      by Entropy (4228) on Tuesday October 28 2014, @07:51PM (#110960)

      It doesn't actually have to improve on Windows 7... It just has to be exactly like Windows 7 while not doing anything else.

      Seems everything Microsoft does to "improve" really is a step backwards. I don't want them to "improve" my start menu by removing or, or "improve" my experience by tightly knitting my desktop OS with a phone I'll never use because it's unilaterally inferior. I don't need a famously insecure web browser more tightly coupled with the OS, or Skype(now neutered into being completely insecure) tightly coupled to the OS.

    • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday October 28 2014, @07:51PM

      by LoRdTAW (3755) on Tuesday October 28 2014, @07:51PM (#110961) Journal

      I played with the Windows 10 preview and so far it appears to fix the UI nightmare of Windows 8. Windows 8 brought a few interesting things to the table such as native USB 3, native mounting of ISO, IMG and VHD disk images, lower system requirements, and a few other tweaks. But they were nowhere near enough to make me even think of switching to that nightmare of a UI.

      I do agree that a single package manager in windows would be a welcome addition. But as you said, who controls the keys to the repo kingdom?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 29 2014, @08:16AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 29 2014, @08:16AM (#111069)

        I played with the Windows 10 preview and so far it appears to fix the UI nightmare of Windows 8.

        Just wait till you get the next preview. There was an article recently with screenshots showing that they were replacing Control Panel with a touch UI.

        That would be great on my tablet (Control Panel is basically useless, with checkboxes and links about half the size of my fingertip - and I have small fingers), but on a PC, I'll be sticking with Windows 7, if they keep pushing the touch interface.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 29 2014, @02:20PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 29 2014, @02:20PM (#111160)

          Why can't they leave the damn control panel alone. It was FINE in Windows 98!

    • (Score: 2) by Darth Turbogeek on Tuesday October 28 2014, @11:24PM

      by Darth Turbogeek (1073) on Tuesday October 28 2014, @11:24PM (#110999)

      IF Microsoft even gets this half right, this will be an absolute godsend. And to be honest I think they can at least do that, given the enterprise tools do tend to be quite powerful and useful. Reading the article on How-to-geek makes this out to be as very apt-get like so I will be VERY happy if it works.

      Also leveraging this via Active Directory / GPO's will rock. I have always preferred Linux repositories and getting that with AD / GPO control.... yes please!

    • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday October 29 2014, @05:48PM

      by Immerman (3985) on Wednesday October 29 2014, @05:48PM (#111280)

      What's so ridiculous about code signing? As I understand it most Linux package managers have the same requirement - it's practically essential to keep malicious actors from trivially corrupting the repositories with malware. The trick is simply in who gets to control the keys - so long as *I* am the one who gets to decide whether *my* computer should trust software signed by Mozilla, etc., I don't see the problem.

      Of course Microsoft being Microsoft I'm sure they'll be at least tempted to only support software signed by their keys - but making the PM open source seems like a good-faith move on their part, so maybe they've accepted that people won't accept them as the ultimate PC software gatekeeper - at least for now. Get the Windows-using masses comfortable with the idea of a package manager, and maybe that will change in the future. At the very least MS will control which keys will be accepted by default, and the requisite scary "don't accept other keys unless you trust both the intentions and security of the source" should keep repository proliferation in check, giving MS a tidy little market advantage among the computer ignorati.

  • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday October 28 2014, @07:24PM

    by tangomargarine (667) on Tuesday October 28 2014, @07:24PM (#110956)

    Let's get Chocolatey! Chocolatey NuGet is a Machine Package Manager, somewhat like apt-get, but built with Windows in mind.

    Is this a thing that's going around lately? Can't say I've ever heard of it before.

    Also, the headline is ambiguous whether the tool itself is to be open-source, or if it's a tool for managing open-source package installation...but this is Windows, so I don't see that it's particularly relevant in either case.

    --
    "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by jimshatt on Tuesday October 28 2014, @09:18PM

      by jimshatt (978) on Tuesday October 28 2014, @09:18PM (#110980) Journal
      I've tried using it. It's okay-ish. NuGet is a very good package manager mainly used for dependency/package management for Visual Studio projects. The NuGet framework is good enough for real package management, so chocolatey is a shell that does exactly that. The problem is that the client software (firefox, 7zip, anything) has to be adapted to work as a NuGet package. Installs are fine in my experience, but since most applications auto-update anyways, I didn't use the update feature of chocolatey at all. In the end I just forgot about it completely with zero impact whatsoever.
      For real usage in Windows 10, a UI needs to be provided, notification of updates etc. But it's a good idea. Hope it will work out.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 28 2014, @09:29PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 28 2014, @09:29PM (#110983)

      They may be using the term "open source" to refer to this, but it won't be anything like Free Software. [google.com]
      (Thus Stallman's insistence on using that specific latter term.)
      You may even be able to *see* the code, but there will be patents and copyrights and pitfalls and plenty of gotchas.
      With M$, there always are. It's their business model.

      .
      TheRegister has been calling Google "The Chocolate Factory" for a while now, with chocolatey references now and then (perhaps starting with Android KitKat).
      Chocolate Factory [google.com]
      chocolatey [google.com]
      It sounds to me like another example of M$ not being able to come up with an original name.

      -- gewg_

      • (Score: 2) by Marneus68 on Wednesday October 29 2014, @08:24AM

        by Marneus68 (3572) on Wednesday October 29 2014, @08:24AM (#111070) Homepage

        >They may be using the term "open source" to refer to this, but it won't be anything like Free Software.
        Actually, the Apache License they picked is considered to be Free Software according to the terms of the FSF. Are you sure you're not just going apeshit because it's made by Miscrosoft?

        >You may even be able to *see* the code, but there will be patents and copyrights and pitfalls and plenty of gotchas.
        For now, everything is there, open for you to see, clone and fork, all usable under the Apache license. I'm guessing there will be a lot of signing and a whole "trust" mechanism in place, as they are prone to do, but it's still a step in the right direction in terms of usability.

        >With M$, there always are. It's their business model.
        Sometimes yes, sometimes no, depends on the project leader and company politics regarding the project. This one is led by the head of their Open Source division or something of the sort apparently.

  • (Score: 1) by pgc on Tuesday October 28 2014, @07:41PM

    by pgc (1600) on Tuesday October 28 2014, @07:41PM (#110959)

    A step in the right direction! However, do they not already have an appstore for their Mobile platform? Will this be compatible? I always assumed they'd expand on that ...

    • (Score: 2) by tibman on Tuesday October 28 2014, @07:58PM

      by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 28 2014, @07:58PM (#110964)

      Chocolatey is pretty much only useful for development, not end-users. Though i could see Chocolatey being fetched via a different package manager. I think the only way to get it right now is download via website.

      --
      SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
      • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday October 28 2014, @11:04PM

        by tangomargarine (667) on Tuesday October 28 2014, @11:04PM (#110996)

        Sup dawg, I heard you like package managers, so I put a package manager that you can install via your package manager...

        But the real joke is that you install it via one of those K09349786 updates from Microsoft that mysteriously fails.

        --
        "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
      • (Score: 1) by pgc on Wednesday October 29 2014, @04:15PM

        by pgc (1600) on Wednesday October 29 2014, @04:15PM (#111219)

        I' ve seen nothing that indicates this specifically being geared toward developers?

        I think sysadmins could have a field day with this.

        • (Score: 2) by tibman on Wednesday October 29 2014, @06:57PM

          by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 29 2014, @06:57PM (#111308)

          NuGet is for libraries (code), pretty much dev only. This is similar but for whole applications (binaries). It looks like they do have a lot of end-user applications in there now though. https://chocolatey.org/packages [chocolatey.org]

          --
          SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
    • (Score: 2) by Marneus68 on Wednesday October 29 2014, @08:28AM

      by Marneus68 (3572) on Wednesday October 29 2014, @08:28AM (#111071) Homepage

      >an appstore
      Usually "appstores" are nothing like package managers. Sure enough, you can download software packages from these, but they don't usually allow for scripted installs and dependency management. A package manager handles that.
      Maybe they'll use the "appstores" they have as back-ends services for the OneGet tool, but there's nothing explicit about that yet.

  • (Score: 1) by Rataerix on Tuesday October 28 2014, @11:13PM

    by Rataerix (799) on Tuesday October 28 2014, @11:13PM (#110997)

    I can only see it ever being used by a few developers. Must Windows users, even a bit more technical ones, don't know what powershell is. Touching a command line tool will not be popular with Windows users even if its a lot faster.

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Darth Turbogeek on Tuesday October 28 2014, @11:45PM

      by Darth Turbogeek (1073) on Tuesday October 28 2014, @11:45PM (#111004)

      Speak for yourself. I'm already having a good look and I wont be the only SysAdmin who suddenly sat up and paid very close attention. Every SysAdmin who is familiar with Linux package mangers is going to work out very fast how this'll make their Windows networks use this. And I bet a lot of pure Windows admins are going to also be all over this.

      Setting up a custom repo for in house applications, installs based on OU membership and GPO directed? OH HELL YES!

      Frankly if you have to deal with Windows PC's, this is absolutely something to watch because it has real potential to make life a lot easier and PC's more remote manageable.

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Nail_Biter on Tuesday October 28 2014, @11:58PM

      by Nail_Biter (4135) on Tuesday October 28 2014, @11:58PM (#111009)

      I'd share my scripts and accompanying Scheduled Task with the public. I know the feedback would help me make it better, so why not? However, the whole thing falls apart if third party devs are allowed to continue including bundleware. This for me is the dealbreaker. If I have to dance around varying crapware install lingo then I won't bother.

      For the home user, anything is welcome. If you've ever had the misfortune of using Secunia PSI, you'll know what I mean.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 29 2014, @09:52AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 29 2014, @09:52AM (#111083)

      You don't need to touch a shell to use apt/dpkg in Ubuntu. There is a nice GUI window which tells you when there are updates available and it asks you if you want to install them.

  • (Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Tuesday October 28 2014, @11:51PM

    by wonkey_monkey (279) on Tuesday October 28 2014, @11:51PM (#111005) Homepage

    The command line tool is developed in the open under the Apache License as the development of the project was moved to GitHub after community feedback was deemed too "overwhelming" for CodePlex.

    I have no idea what's what in that sentence. Was the choice of Apache a direct consequence of the move to GitHub, or what?

    community feedback was deemed too "overwhelming"

    Who or what was overwhelmed? Did CopePlex fall over because it had too much traffic? Does CodePlex allow more "community feedback" and that's what was overwhelming to the developers?

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk
    • (Score: 2) by Marneus68 on Wednesday October 29 2014, @08:34AM

      by Marneus68 (3572) on Wednesday October 29 2014, @08:34AM (#111074) Homepage

      >I have no idea what's what in that sentence.
      Sorry, phrasing. There are no consequence implied or anything, I was just trying to emphasize the fact that their work was both done in the open and Open Sourced. My bad.

      >Who or what was overwhelmed?
      No word on that, but I included the link to the CodePlex page where you are greeted by that ambiguous message too. I just wanted to point out that the project manager decided to move out of the company tool to use the GitHub (in that case, a competitor) instead, that's interesting in itself. I don't know what were CodePlex's shortcomings exactly, but I think that says something, either about the platform, or about the guy in charge of the project at Microsoft.