Proposal: maintain our own package registries for io.js related packages

[mikeal]

Given the struggle we continue to find ourselves in when working with debian, homebrew, and other package managers in trying to maintain an up-to-date version I think it's time to consider some alternative approaches.

AFAIK, all package managers let you add a registry endpoint. @aredridel is doing this already for homebrew, why don't we take these registries in to the org and allow for related io.js projects to also add freely to them. We could automate the updating of these registries on each release which not only would save people a lot of hassle but assure downstream users better upgrade paths. Then we just document that the way to install node on these platforms is to run the command to add this registry and then install.

Thoughts?

[ghost]

👍, i think this is 100% better than having a million different versions on a million different package managers

[Fishrock123]

+1 so that we don't end up in the situation where things like apt-get return ancient versions of node on some linux systems.

[bcomnes]

For old-school package managers like apt, yum, I think supporting alternative package channels is a freaking great idea (like a ppa and rpm repo). Non-rolling distros are painfully out of date and setting up custom channels is actually pretty hard.

For rolling package managers (pacman, homebrew etc), I think it should taken case by case.

Speaking from my experiences with homebrew, I think supporting a separate tap in the long run wouldn't be so great. The homebrew maintainers have expressed absolute willingness to include iojs and historically do a great job at maintaining different versions of runtimes (eg python, python3, pypy, ruby, ruby 186 etc), but can only do so once a clear strategy is laid out how to handle the node namespace and patched npm conflicts. I think providing some suggestions on how iojs can be installed along side node from the team leads would be helpful to speed up adoption into default package repos.

Having a tap that installs iojs right now would be great, but it should be noted that the existing taps don't currently install the patched node-gyp (that I have seen), so they suffer the same problem that the official formula does right now. It seems like it would be less work to ask people to accept the slightly added complexity of running a node version manager, which can be easily installed through package managers.

[Qard]

Even a simple Ubuntu PPA would be nice. The install process for io.js or node.js to use it for frontend tooling is a bit less friendly than it could be. I have several coworkers that aren't usual node users, but want to use some tools off npm, and complain to me about how difficult it is to install.

[isaacs]

I support this decision.

[megastef]

You talking about distros/OS installation? - But what about a separate NPM registry? My biggest pain with IO.js are native packages from nodejs NPM registry that don't compile with IO.js - many times seen regardless of using NAN or not. Maintainers of this packages might need to do a new version which would not run on nodejs - means also not placed to npm registry ...

[mscdex]

👍

[19h]

👍

This is awesome. Albeit the homebrew situation, I love seeing effort being made to concentrate iojs and rolling our own repositories. That is, I also suggest efforts to remove the then-obsolete packages from existing repositories, that includes 1) iojs installations and 2) iojs "installers" / version managers.

[ghost]

although, for pacman, most oss packages have -git versions which pull directly from a stable branch (i think, something like that). could we maybe set up something like that (for at least the aur?)

[bcomnes]

FWIW @aredridel's https://github.com/aredridel/homebrew-iojs homebrew tap would make a nice candidate for an official iojs tap IMO. I would be willing to help maintain it and keep it up to date. All it would take is moving it over to to the iojs org and updating the README a tad and its ready to go.

I still have hope for the official homebrew formula though.

[buschtoens]

👍 for a Ubuntu ppa. The NodeSource install process is dead simple and I got used/addicted to it. I currently refrain from using io.js for anything more than trivial experiments, because of the installation hassle.

But I would ❤️ to use io.js as default, if there was an easier installation and update routine.

[ghost]

👍 for Ubuntu ppa.

[hit9]

+1

[feross]

Any progress on an io.js ppa?

[mgcrea]

I'm currently using the PPA from chris-lea (@chrislea?). Would be really nice to have on for io.js. 👍

[nickwebha]

Debian/Ubuntu PPA +1

I am considering switching over to io.js from node.js for two very large projects. This would help in making that transition so much easier. Especially for developing on top of io.js.

[rvagg]

FYI, repos for recent Ubutnu releases are done, just need to finish the setup scripts and some testing and then finish up a release announcement. Should be able to get that done this weekend!

[chrislea]

What @rvagg said. Recent Debian distros are supported as well, and we are working on support for older Ubuntu / Debian (by which I specifically mean Precise / Wheezy).

[feross]

Excellent news – looking forward to switching to iojs in production.

[ChALkeR]

@rvagg Nice!
@chrislea Current iojs binary builds work fine with wheezy, don't they? Repackaged versions of those (even in /opt/) would still be better than no packages, if there are problems with compiling nodejs with an old version of gcc found in Debian wheezy.

[rvagg]

https://nodesource.com/blog/nodejs-v012-iojs-and-the-nodesource-linux-repositories debs for newer Debian and Ubuntu based systems

[buschtoens]

❤️

[feross]

Excellent!
On Fri, Mar 6, 2015 at 12:24 PM Jan Buschtöns [email protected]
wrote:

❤

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Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
#640 (comment).

[zdm]

Redheat / Fedora / CentOS yum repo will be very helpful.

[chrisdickinson]

This appears to be handled by the Nodesource repos — if you're interested in that work follow this issue.