Make a .deb/.rpm for release.

[taviso]

I think we should make a .deb/.rpm, but how?

I think the main question is if it is okay to include a 123 binary, or should we include ld and link it together in a script?

[vrza]

Usually the approach with distributing proprietary software is to have users build packages locally. Here's some docs from Red Hat on the subject:

https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2014/12/10/how-to-package-proprietary-software

Keep in mind that building and packaging for different distribution can get complicated -- we already have accumulated workaround shell sripts, and a one-size-fits all .rpm that would work on all RPM-based distributions (e.g. Red Hat, Fedora, Mandriva, OpenSUSE) might not be viable, especially if the install process will involve building locally.

Then there are non-GNU, non-Linux systems such as FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, where porting still needs to happen before packaging is even possible.

While making the build and install system robust, portable and packaging-friendly is definitely a very important goal, it is also important to define precisely to what extent maintaining packages for different operating systems / distributions should be in the scope of this project, as opposed to these packages being maintained by package maintainers of specific distributions, in their own version control systems, with this project serving as their upstream.

[taviso]

I agree it's a challenge, but it would be nice to have an easy way to try it out for people who are curious.

I think if we at least have a deb/rpm that works for Debian/Ubuntu/Fedora it would be a good start.

Porting to NetBSD shouldn't be too much work, and there's probably a lot of classic UNIX fans who could be interested!

[taviso]

I don't really know what I'm doing, but I made a first attempt.

https://github.com/taviso/123elf/releases/tag/v1.0.0-rc1

I figure it's better than nothing 🤷‍♂️

[vrza]

Cool! Might be worth asking the Debian package maintainers if they want to include this in their official repositories, or we could host our own reoisitory, or use one of the unofficial repositories.