portableLinuxApps

[Forester]

check out these little gems I stumbled upon:
http://portablelinuxapps.org/

It's like a better substitute for klik only tested one so far and it appears to be working

Here's a article from about 6 months ago ... http://www.linuxinsider.com/rsstory/70921.html. The author says they don't work but then he doesn't have the dino touch.

He starts by writing something along the lines that Windows is useless until you install a lot of application software. Agree there. One of the things I like about the major Linux Distributions is they are (in principle) a one-stop shop. Their repositories have all you'll ever need, their package managers ensure you get a consistent set of software and there are even graphical front ends so you don't get to marvel at how incredibly well its all works.

Take an application pre-built for goodness knows what and it will run on any Linux distribution ? Wow. I'm not surprised he was disappointed.

I recognise some of the applications. They are cross-platform applications I used under Windows before I found I no further use for it. By definition, these tend not too closely integrated with the host OS (look Mum, no Windows registry) and so may be more suitable for this kind of one binary fits all approach. Many you can download from their official site and install on your Linux without using your distribution's repository (or compiling from source). So again these are the more portable applications. I'm sure they'll get more portable as they need to fit on more and more mobile devices.

No one has mentioned Eclipse. I can run eclipse from USB 'cos installation is no more than unpacking Java source files into a directory of my choice. Can't get more portable but I still need a Java VM run-time sitting on top of an OS.

Packages, not applications, that fiddle with hardware or run as daemons or need to install configuration files in /etc are not so likely to port and these are just the kind of application that give newbies so much trouble (until they learn the difference and leave well alone).

What I think that guy would like (and perhaps so would I) is apps on a stick together will all user settings and I haven't seen anything yet to say this is so with these applications.

Still, interesting idea.

The most interesting thing he wrote (only because I wasn't aware of this) is that Puppy Linux is now Ubuntu compatible. I chose Knoppix 'cos I can install software from the huge Debian repositories whereas Puppy used to be restricted to just a few hundred packages because it had its own package management system. Now Puppy suddenly seems very attractive.

Bet it won't run Eclipse is a Virtual Box with only 512 Mb of memory though.