Zenguin Inc has launched a project to develop a user-friendly application installer for Linux. The Oakland, California-based company hopes to accommodate the differences between the various Linux distributions. The Zenguin Installer will make it easy to install applications on any major version of the Linux operating system, explained president and CEO Scott McNeil – and yes, that’s the same Scott McNeil who was last seen handling strategic alliances for the North American arm of German Linux distributor SuSE (CI No 3,493).
Demand for Linux desktop applications is up, and subtle differences between installation scripts, file system structures and libraries means application developers have to settle on a single distribution or support multiple versions of their software. Even so, Zenguin’s Installer may only have a brief window of opportunity. The Linux Standard Base (LSB) project is a specification designed to eliminate precisely those differences between distributions that prevent applications from running. When all the Linuxes are binary-compatible, Zenguin may have to find another vacant niche in the increasingly crowded open source software community.
