[Desktop_architects] klik+autopackage: More info about the example packages (was: Notes from autopackage author)

Kurt Pfeifle k1pfeifle at gmx.net
Sat Dec 31 23:16:44 PST 2005


> A few suggested applications to test klik with:
> -----------------------------------------------
> (I'll post some more extended descriptions in one of my next mails)

In my last mail I suggested a mix of klik-ified applications to 
play with, in order to gain an overview about klik's current scope.

Here comes a more detailed description about the suggested packages,
so you can probably see *why* I picked that particular mix.

Also, a little correction/clarification. I had written:

  "do not be scared by seeing an RPM downloaded onto your Debian
   system, or a .deb onto your SUSE; it is all by design, and will 
   not harm your system! The worst that can happen is that the bundle 
   just doesnt work. In that case, simply delete it."

Let me first modify that bit a tad:

   Oh, wait. While klik bundles will not interfere with your 
   *system* installation (binaries, libraries, package manager), 
   they may well write to your "dot" files in your $HOME directory
   (or into your "Mail" folder in case you did run and actually use
   for mail retrieval the klik://thunderbird16-tabbed package or 
   another mailer). So better back up your dot files, or create a 
   test user if you want to be 105% safe!.


As said previously, klik started from a pure KDE-based approach and
has extended its reach now to a more widely-defined scope.

This mixture will give you a good overview what sort of application 
klik covers right now:


Proprietary, Commercial ISV Products:
-------------------------------------

klik://skype
  A proprietary, commercial VoIP program; klik uses the statically
  compiled binary provided from the Skype vendor himself via
  http://www.skype.com/go/getskype-linux-static to produce the 
  final skype.cmg from.

klik://opera9
  Made into the opera9.cmg by klik from the vendor-provided package at
  http://snapshot.opera.com/unix/9.0-Preview-1/intel-linux/opera-static_9.0-20051020.1-qt_en_i386.deb

klik://planmaker
  The word processing part of a proprietary Office suite. Input file
  is http://www.softmaker.net/down/textmakertrial.tgz, a pre-compiled 
  binary from the vendor. klik converts it into textmaker.cmg.


open source, commercial ISV product:
------------------------------------

klik://wengophone
  A GPL-ed, commercial VoIP program; klik uses the vendor provided
  pre-compiled Debian package at
  http://www.wengofiles.teaser-hosting.com/wengophone/rc/wengophone-0.958m-1.i386.deb
  as its input to produce the wengophone.cmg from.

klik://xara-latest
  You may have heard of this formerly closed source producing company,
  which provides a vector drawing program for Windows. Well, now they
  are trying their luck with open sourcing their flagship product Xara
  Xtreme, and seeking the cooperation of the Inkscape folks. This klik
  package uses a precompiled binary from the vendor (in *.bz2 shape)
  and converts it into xara-latest.cmg. (Some Xara demo/sample files are 
  also included with the klik package; you can open them by navigating 
  to the somewhat unusual location /tmp/app/[number]/bin/Designs/ -- 
  Don't ask!)


open source, non-commercial ISV products:
-----------------------------------------

klik://firefox
  We all know The Fox, right? This klik recipe uses as input file
  http://ftp-mozilla.netscape.com/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/1.5/linux-i686/en-US/firefox-1.5.tar.gz
  to produce its firefox.cmg from.


open source, alpha-quality, technological preview (fully functional):
---------------------------------------------------------------------

klik://thunderbird16-tabbed
  Now this is cute, because it gives you a glimpse about what is 
  cooking in the Thunderbird kitchen: it provides you with the fully 
  working 1.6a1 Alpha version of Mozilla's mailer, which is patched 
  by one particular developer (Myk Melez) to demonstrate what the 
  concept of "tabbed emailing" could look like for people who want to 
  open and work with multiple mails at once. 
  The klik recipe uses Myk's binary from his personal repository at
  http://www.melez.com/tabmail/thunderbird-1.6a1.en-US.linux-i686.tar.bz2
  and converts it into the final thunderbird16-tabbed.cmg.


KDE programs:
-------------

klik://kalzium
  A very nice chemistry program for educational and teaching purposes. 
  Is said to be even used at some universities. Debian Sarge packages
  provide the input to make the kalzium.cmg from.

klik://kstars
  A KDE-based very nice and powerful astronomy application (can even
  remote-control various scientific, professional and amateur telescope 
  models). klik uses various Debian Sarge .deb ingredient files to 
  produce the final kstars_3.3.2-3.cmg from.

klik://klamav
  A KDE frontend to the clamav anti-virus engine. Uses *Mandrake RPMS 
  from ftp://ftp.uni-bayreuth.de/pub/linux/Mandrakelinux/devel/cooker
  to create the klamav.cmg from.
 
klik://taskjuggler
  A KDE-based project management software used internally by Novell. 
  klik uses a mix of SUSE-RPMs and Debian .debs to produce the final 
  TaskJugglerUI.cmg file from. (This mix is not yet fully tested, and 
  may suffer from "mysterious" crashes caused by typical C++ ABI 
  incompatibilities if software components are compiled with different 
  versions of GCC).

klik://kmymoney
  A third-party personal finance application for KDE. klik fetches the
  Xandros .deb package made by the developers and converts it into a
  the kmymoney.deb file


Gtk programs:
-------------

klik://stellarium
  A Gtk-based (Gnome?) very nice educational application that teaches
  about the heavenly looks of the sky  ;-)
  klik uses Debian packages from official Debian repositories to convert
  them into the final stellarium_0.6.2-2.cmg.

klik://gimp
  Unfortunately, this will give you only Gimp-2.0.6. But the two 
  special things about this one is:
  a) it comes from http://opensuse.linux.co.nz/klik/10.0/gimp_2.0.6.cmg
     as a ready-made klik *.cmg file
  b) the .cmg file was created from an autopacke-d gimp.package (!) 
     file
  And the good news is, that the Gimp developers have contacted us a
  few days ago, because they have now (after a long struggle :-) made
  their software relocate-able (and compliant to autopackage 
  requirements), and because they want to offer in the near future 
  on a regular basis easy-to-use "klik://gimp-latest" snapshots so that
  their beta testers and to their OpenUsability.org advisors need not
  to mess with compile marathons and automake weirdness.

klik://inkscape-latest
  Bryce will love that! Main input file is a Debian Sarge package from
  http://honk.physik.uni-konstanz.de/~wolfi/inkscape/sarge/ . Unforch,
  this is not really "latest" -- the guy who builds the binaries does
  not update tooooo often.
  So, Bryce, if you can point me to a place on the net where there are
  weekly or nightly updated .debs (or .rpms/.tgzs) of Inkscape builds
  I'll modifiy the klik recipe with great pleasure to use these and
  provide more current Inkscape goodness to the world!   ;-)


A FLTK-based program:
---------------------

klik://htmldoc
  htmldoc is a very useful and nifty HTML-to-PDF converter (it converts
  to PostScript too if you want). Written by Mike Sweet, it uses FLTK
  for its toolkit. The Debian Sarge input files work just fine to 
  create the klik-ified htmldoc_1.8.23-1.3.cmg from. Mike, if you know
  a more current binary download source (RPM, .deb or .tgz) for htmldoc,
  I can easily update the recipe!


A pure Qt program:
------------------

klik://scribus-latest
  The best and most complete desktop publishing program for Linux! 
  Used even in professional environments. Available for Mac OS X and
  Windows too. klik uses Debian package provided by the Scribus devs:
  http://debian.scribus.net/debian/dists/stable/main/binary-i386/


A Tcl/Tk program (!):
---------------------

klik://amsn-latest
  An MSN messenger written in TCL(!). This version uses a pre-compiled 
  binary provided by the developers themselves from their Sourceforge 
  repository: http://amsn.sourceforge.net/amsn_cvs.tar.gz klik converts
  this input into amsn-latest.cmg


-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Next mail, I'll provide more background about how klik creates its
packages.

Cheers,
Kurt



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