Bert Freudenberg wrote:
> On 16.12.2009, at 11:58, Andreas Raab wrote:
>> Bert Freudenberg wrote:
>>> On 16.12.2009, at 09:23, Andreas Raab wrote:
>>>> Question for the Unix folks: If we know that what you get via package install is most likely very old, would it make sense to check inside Squeak whether a new version is available? I.e., just a simple
>>>>
>>>> (HTTPSocket httpGet: 'http://www.squeak.org/current_version') = SystemVersion current ifFalse:[self inform: 'A new version of Squeak has become available. Would you like to install it now?'].
>>>>
>>>> might help get people more accustomed with later developments. Would that be a sensible thing to do?
>>> It would be highly unusual in Linux, where version management and updates are provided by the system rather than by individual packages.
>> Never mind then ;-)
>>
>>> Also, we'd have to state to how to actually get the new version. Which there are a ton of possibilities for, depending on how you got Squeak in the first place.
>> Fire up a web browser pointing at http://www.squeak.org/download/linux#distro
>>
>> Cheers,
>>  - Andreas
> 
> And then what? 
> 
> Linux has advanced beyond "./configure; make; make install". Downloading a tarball feels antiquated. Regular users don't do that anymore unless they absolutely have to. Package maintainers do and bundle this in a package for their distro.
> 
> Even downloading a DEB or RPM from random web sites doesn't make it much better, because this interferes with distro packages, again bypassing the official update mechanism.
> 
> IMHO the debs and rpms on squeak.org should be removed, and maintenance moved to the respective distros. Empower and support the maintainers, like Debian's José Redrejo or Fedora's Gavin Romig-Koch or Mandriva's Aleksey Lim.
> 
> - Bert -
> 
> 
+ 1

More generally, is this about getting a new VM, a new image or updates
to the image? I think this is what is likely to confuse users where
Squeak is concerned as opposed to regular app updates, ie, predominantly
just the binaries. As a user if there an "update" then ideally I want an
updated VM and updated image with my own changes preserved (tricky).

Re image updating via established methods, didn't someone do a FUSE
plug-in a while back so the image could be accessed like a file system?
Maybe this could open up some options?

-D