Zero Install

Zero Install is a means of distributing (currently only) Linux Software. Rather than the normal method of downloading a software package, extracting it, and installing it (a process which may be difficult to reverse) before you can run it, packages distributed using Zero Install need only run. The first time software is accessed, it is downloaded from the Internet and (if so configured) cached; subsequently, software is accessed from the cache.

The Zero Install system used to be the combination of two packages: A Module (Linux) for the Linux kernel that provides the lazyfs filesystem, and the Zero Install Daemon (computer software) process, which fetches new software when needed. This system is now being replaced with a set of user-level tools written in Python_programming_language, called the injector.

Some advantages of Zero Install are:

No Root_(computing) password needed to install software. Thus, package installation can only affect the user who chooses to install it and anyone can run new software.

Only what you need is downloaded. Rather than downloading all of a piece of software, only the required aspects of it are fetched. For instance, translations are not downloaded until they are accessed, so if you only ever use the default language of a piece of software, you never need to download the translations.

All software packaged this way is always available, as long as a computer network connection is. There is no concept of one computer having a program or library installed, while another one does not have it.

Some disadvantages of Zero Install are:

Because no root password is required, it may be harder to set up a restricted kiosk-type system using Zero Install.

The system only works well with machines that are always online. Even if a program is mostly installed and usable, accessing the documentation or a new language while offline may fail.

=Related articles=

ROX Desktop

=External links=

[http://0install.org The Zero Install webpage]