pip install apkg

After much thought and discussion I decided to use PyPI as a primary distribution channel for apkg during alpha.

apkg will be available from PyPI starting with %v0.1 release to be easily installed on any supported platform using

pip install apkg

Note modern pip is finally smart enough to do a user install when you run it as user :)

Why PyPI instead of native packages?

Good question!

Native packages are preferred way to install software and they will be provided once apkg matures as requested in #18 (closed) .

However, apkg needs to work on any supported platform which includes older OS releases (some live longer than 5 years 👴) with obsolete (or missing) versions of python modules apkg needs to run. Maintaining native apkg packages for all supported distros and their releases (already > 40) is a huge burden which would divert my cycles from development to maintenance so I've chosen to use standard python distribution system instead which is well known to work across different platforms including Windows and Mac OS where I'm unable to provide native packages but apkg could be useful there as well.

Furthermore, apkg is targeted at developers, packagers, and their CI systems where pip install apkg will simply work on wide range of systems (including containers and VMs) with minimum requirements (python3 and pip) without the need of distro-specific hacks and special cases.

A single coherent way to install latest apkg including all deps at right versions regardless of host system will benefit users and developers alike. I've experimented with native python packaging a lot and I found modern pip to finally be a convenient and universal distribution channel for python software.

As apkg matures and gains users, I'll be happy to work with the community to provide native packages as needed. For now PyPI seems to be the way to go during early development with minimal packaging burden.