I was wondering if IPFS is packaged for some distributions… I’m on Debian, and apparently there isn’t any IPFS package. I’d love if somebody could work to make packages, at least for the most popular distributions. A simpler installation process would definitely help a lot to get new users.
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As I see it, distribution packages are not very well fitted for IPFS, in relation to simply downloading the binary.
Following requirements into official repositories would mean to package not only IPFS, but all its dependencies, so it can be built offline by using them (rather than gx install), or somehow to come up with a source-code tarball that includes everything (something IPFS does not officially provide).
The alternative is to wrap the built binary in the source package, or to have a source package which needs to be built online to download the deps. As far as I’m aware this goes against official packaging guidelines for major distros. Of course you can do it anyway (and some people have done it), but it is then harder to prove you are not distributing an altered version of IPFS (with malware or who knows what), as it will never receive the official repository stamp of approval.
As a result, IPFS would need to approve (sign and possibly host) such packages instead, which are after all just a way to wrap the binary!
I’m inclined to think that the best way to approach package distribution is by a ipfs-installer package which provides an installer for IPFS (which then downloads the build). This technique is used normally for non-opensource stuff like Steam and is a way to provide an easy way to install a piece of software and at the same time be accepted in the official repositories.
These thoughts is why I haven’t already packaged it for OpenSUSE for example…
We have plans for making work for packagers much easier by distributing source tarball with all sources and dependency sources included (just not enough time to work on it). This will unblock people that want to contribute by creating package definitions to their favorite distributions. Packaging software for given distro isn’t easy, it requires quite a lot of work, time and courage.
Also go-ipfs is already packaged for few systems like Arch (both in official repos and in AUR) and NixOS.
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ipfs has been available for macOS via Homebrew since the early days.
Once you install Homebrew, all you need to do is:
brew install ipfs at the command line.
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As from 0.4.15 tarball of complete go-ipfs source and dependencies is available: https://dist.ipfs.io/go-ipfs/v0.4.15
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Will homebrew safely upgrade ipfs in the same way as ipfs-update, e.g. by running fs-repo-migrations?
I just installed ipfs with brew, but I’m wondering if it’s as safe as running ipfs-update manually.