Any chance of a Portable_Linux_Freeware.com site?

[bzl333]

just wondering as i notice that Gizmo over at TechSupportAlert (the freeware ranking + listing site) has been adding some Linux lists for a while now and seems like PortableFreeware.com are the experts when it comes to portable stuff. What do you say? Or maybe just a linux section on this site?

[webfork]

Creating a separate section of some kind might be a little premature. I've done a few Linux related posts and information that hasn't drawn much interest but if you can put something together, I'll definitely do what I can to help. If it really catches on, we'll start thinking about something bigger.

[Midas]

It could maybe start with a sub-forum here for submissions and debate of portability on Linux...

[bzl333]

Creating a separate section of some kind might be a little premature. I've done a few Linux related posts and information that hasn't drawn much interest but if you can put something together, I'll definitely do what I can to help. If it really catches on, we'll start thinking about something bigger.

eh, i don't know enough about Linux yet to be of much help though. The only program i've found so far that's really looks portable is MiniTube on Ubuntu and seems like most of the rest are in some kind of tar.gz format and then you still might have to make, compile and all that stuff, which is beyond my knowledge.

i'm kind of surprised there isn't more interest in linux because its pretty easy even now to multi-boot or run Live CD's and most of the OS'es are free. in a few more years we should be able to add or remove an OS from the HDD as simply as copy/delete a folder or file is now.

It could maybe start with a sub-forum here for submissions and debate of portability on Linux...

i vote for this.

[m^(2)]

There are some specialised Linux sites. But I'm also for extending this site though....the way I see it wouldn't be a subsection but rather something that allows managing apps that are portable on different OSes w/out doubling descriptions and such. A bit like on sourceforge, where when you open some app, you see a set of icons showing supported plaftorms, but with an option to limit the site to only one of them with a single click.

[webfork]

rather something that allows managing apps that are portable on different OSes w/out doubling descriptions and such.

That does sound good. However, there are only a few programs I know of that are cross-platform portable:

• GPG4USB (Windows and Linux)
• XMind (requires Java)
• DocFetcher (Windows and Macs with Java)

Something that uses the same settings and runs the same no matter what machine it's run on is obviously more portable, but there aren't a lot of freeware developers who have interest or ability to develop for multiple operating systems. Even the gpg4usb dev pointed out he needs a Mac before they can create a Mac client.

[m^(2)]

I didn't mean "uses the same settings on different machines", but rather "it's usb-portable on various platforms".
Obviously, using the same settings is much better, but the main point was to just deduplicate description, comments and other metadata that's usually not platform specific.

[SYSTEM]

rather something that allows managing apps that are portable on different OSes w/out doubling descriptions and such.

That does sound good. However, there are only a few programs I know of that are cross-platform portable:

• GPG4USB (Windows and Linux)
• XMind (requires Java)
• DocFetcher (Windows and Macs with Java)

Something that uses the same settings and runs the same no matter what machine it's run on is obviously more portable, but there aren't a lot of freeware developers who have interest or ability to develop for multiple operating systems. Even the gpg4usb dev pointed out he needs a Mac before they can create a Mac client.

A program, regardless of platform, is portable as long as it doesn't save settings in a non-portable location such as %APPDATA% or $HOME. I think most natively portable cross-platform applications are portable on all platforms.

[bzl333]

A bit like on sourceforge, where when you open some app, you see a set of icons showing supported plaftorms, but with an option to limit the site to only one of them with a single click.

this would be good.

[webfork]

A program, regardless of platform, is portable as long as it doesn't save settings in a non-portable location such as %APPDATA% or $HOME. I think most natively portable cross-platform applications are portable on all platforms.

I suspect much like windows portable software, some programs claims portability but still saves files to the ~/Library folder in Mac. I know of at least 4 programs to test for portability on Windows but I wouldn't know where to start on Mac/Linux. Anyone have an idea on how to tackle that?

[m^(2)]

A program, regardless of platform, is portable as long as it doesn't save settings in a non-portable location such as %APPDATA% or $HOME. I think most natively portable cross-platform applications are portable on all platforms.

I suspect much like windows portable software, some programs claims portability but still saves files to the ~/Library folder in Mac. I know of at least 4 programs to test for portability on Windows but I wouldn't know where to start on Mac/Linux. Anyone have an idea on how to tackle that?

It's usually quite simple in there. The keyword is: strace.

[Midas]

Topic yet unresolved; here's a possible alternate starting point (no info on portability, though): http://www.osalt.com/

EDIT: Seems someone has beaten us to it -- just check http://portablelinuxapps.org/

PortableLinuxApps are apps that run on most 32-bit Linux-based operating systems, such as Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian and derivatives. They are bundled into self-containing files: 1 app = 1 file. To use them, just download, chmod a+x, and run. AppImageKit lets you bundle apps nicely without dependencies other than the base OS image.

Their forum is at http://portablelinuxapps.org/forum/.