Linux Style Package Management in Windows 10

[Geoff]

I stumbled across this article.

 

Windows 10 Includes a Linux-Style Package Manager Named “OneGet”

 

So package management via Powershell. Sounds handy from a sysadmin point of view, I know having a local repo for all my Linux systems to talk to makes my life far easier. It will have a gui though, so it should be user friendly. Plus it lays the groundwork for a Windows 'App Store', I know that's something Microsoft would like to do.

[6Foot2]

OneGet covered in an earlier post by @Arthur:

 

Link: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/downloads/134968-powershell-oneget-like-apt-get-but-windows.html

[Arthur]

The lead developer of OneGet (Garrett Serack) answered some questions on Reddit earlier today regarding OneGet. His responses are quite interesting to read.

 

• www.reddit.com/user/fearthecowboy
  
• www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/2khkpo/windows_10_to_have_a_package_manager
  

... it's not a package manager, it's a package manager-manager.

 

OneGet does support handling dependencies, but at this point, we don't yet track all the files to ensure stuff is getting cleaned up correctly. This is one of the places I'd like to get to, but because of 20+ years of undesirable behavior, we're gonna have some interesting work to do to get there.

 

The first step here is to get installation streamlined into a model where we can one day fix some of those things.

 

... to be clear, the OneGet is a package manager aggregator, bringing many different kinds of packaging together under a single set of commands.

 

Further to that, license selection shouldn't ever impact how software is packaged and distributed. (With the exception of App-stores, where they get touchy about that. -- OneGet is not an App-store)

 

I'm wondering about all the programs out there at the moment that want to install toolbars, set my homepage, give me a 'free trial' of McAfee and other such . I really want to be using OneGet, it sounds like it could be awesome, but if these companies start making their packages available via it then I need to be confident that they're not going to be silently installing all the extraneous crudware in the background that I don't want (looking at you, Java...).

 

Some package providers support additional options (such as target directory, etc) and we have means to pass that information thru to the package provider to take advantage of that.

 

As for the 'cling-on' crap, I agree. For some package installers we can detect that and suppress that, for others I suspect we'll have to get tricky. Rest assured, that behavior violates one of my laws.

 

So package management via PowerShell.

At the moment it seems more like a command-line version of Ninite than a traditional Linux package manager though.

 

 

I hope Windows developers stop cluttering up our computers with junk like desktop shortcuts when their applications are installed silently.

 

Edited October 28, 2014 by Arthur

[Bob_the_Goon]

Cool! Can't wait to play with this. Does anyone know if this is part of the Technical Preview?

 

Once they've added the Update-Package feature to keep everything automatically updated, this is going to be awesome.

[Geoff]

Yes it's in the tech preview.

[Patrick]

Does this mean we will be bale to deploy .exe packages across the network using this?

[Arthur]

Introducing Package Management in Windows 10

 

In Windows 10 we are launching a new PackageManagement feature (formerly referred to as OneGet) that enables ITPros or DevOps to automate software discovery, installation, and inventory (SDII), locally or remotely, no matter what the installer technology is and where the software is located.

 

So why are we implementing PackageManagement? In the Linux world, people are familiar with package managers such as Apt-Get, YUM, RPM, etc, for different Linux distros. In the Windows world, however, there are quite a few installer technologies, each having their own way to install software, such as MSI, MSU, APPX, and the list goes on and on. This creates a challenge for ITPros and DevOps and a need for a tool to automate the software deployment experience. PackageManagement is aimed at solving this problem. Let’s first have a glance at the architecture.

 

Architecture

PackageManagement is essentially a Package Management Aggregator. It creates a unified and consistent PowerShell interface for users and provides a plug-in model at the back end that different installer technologies or package managers can plug-in as providers, using PackageManagement APIs. Each provider further manages one or multiple package sources (repositories) where software packages are stored.

 

Regardless of the installation technology underneath, users can use these common cmdlets to install/uninstall packages, add/remove/query package repositories, which we call Package Sources, and query a system for the software installed.

 

http://vgy.me/OnRtQV.png