It’s the year 2006, and installing applications in GNU/Linux can still be a nightmare (especially if they are not available in your distribution’s repository). Simon Peter is the developer of klik, a piece of software that tries to resolve this problem. Simon kindly accepted to answer a few questions for FSM.

TM: Hello Simon! Please tell our readers about yourself…

Since this is a computer magazine, I should probably start with my computing history: I used one of the first Macs when they came out, later built my own PC at the expense of having to use Windows, switched to Linux in 2002. I’m 27 years old, native to Germany, and I studied Economics and Business Administration in Germany and the US.

Simon Peter

TM: Can you briefly explain what klik is?

It’s probably the easiest way to download and run software on your PC.

TM: When did you start working on klik? What inspired you?

I had the idea in April 2003 when I was thinking of ways to use additional software that didn’t come with the Knoppix Live CD. Back then, I had no idea of how it could be accomplished. In January 2004, klik came into existence, and since then it has been growing into what it is today, thanks to the feedback and help of many users. Today, there is a community of contributors and supporters on the #klik channel on irc.freenode.net, and together we help to drive klik forward.

The ease of the first Mac inspired me: On the Mac in 1986, you could simply copy an application file to your hard disk and it would run. If you wanted it no more, you could simply move the application icon to the trash. In contrast, Linux 2003 required you to become root, type in cryptic commands, and understand what “broken packages” meant. And you never knew what went on “behind the scenes”: what files were installed all over the place on the system.

I just wanted to have the same simplicity on Linux that the original Mac had. Plus, I wanted to store my applications wherever I had some space left—be it on a CD-ROM, a DVD, or a USB stick. Linux couldn’t do that: it required me to install everything to /usr. I felt like the machine was in command of me, not the other way around (as it should be). I felt it was time for a radically different approach: One file per application.

TM: Software installation in Linux is renowned for being susceptible to the “dependency hell” problem. In your documentation, you write: “No dependencies besides base system. No other dependencies are necessary besides what comes already with the base system (distribution).”. However… sometimes, what “comes already with the base system” depends on what the user installed in the first place. I might not have libjpeg in my system, and klik application might need it. What happens in that case? Is there an automatic way of dealing with this sort of problem?

Klik assumes that a certain set of libraries is part of your base system. Those are the libraries that are required by many applications and thus come with every major desktop distribution (e.g., libstdc++5, QT, KDE/GNOME, etc.). More “exotic” libraries that cannot be expected to be part of a user’s base system are downloaded by klik as part of the respective application.

TM: Do applications tend to use more RAM when they run, as they are bundled with all the dependencies?

No, they don’t, since klik uses shared libraries like any Linux distribution. It simply downloads the required libraries along with the applications, so that they are available in case they are not already part of the base system. By the way, applications aren’t bundled with all dependencies, but only with those that cannot be expected to be part of the base system. Is this a waste of hard disk space? No, since klik applications are stored in compressed form, they often use even less space than traditionally installed applications.

Really, most users don’t care about dependencies as long as their software works. My favorite story is about the 71 year-old grandmother who uses klik…

TM: How is the base system made aware of the fact that a klik application is installed?

One of the design principles of klik is that applications you download shouldn’t change the base system. Hence, klik doesn’t register file types, or change anything else on your system. This means that you need to open documents from within the respective application, or drag them onto the application’s icon. (This is a feature, not a bug—klik is designed not to ever “mess” with your system, regardless of how many applications you try out.)

TM: You say you see this as a “feature”. However, I believe people will always want to be able to double-click on a document, for example, and start OpenOffice automatically (even though OpenOffice is installed as a klik application). I guess this is up to the distributions (in particular, Nautilus and Konqueror should be able to do that). Do you see this as an important point? Do you know if GNOME and KDE already allow for this, or if they will?

You can set up GNOME/KDE to associate files with klik applications, just like with any other application. But that’s not the point: you then lose the ability to move your applications, e.g. onto a CD-ROM. Plus, if you have multiple versions of an application or multiple applications that work with a certain type of file, it would probably get more confusing rather than doing any good. Personally, I always open files with the open dialog of the respective application. If you don’t like that, you can drag documents to the respective application’s icon. Or, if you really want, you can set up a file association yourself.