The Zero Install system

The Zero Install Injector

The injector (0launch) is a small Python program. You ask it to run a program by giving it the program's full name (a web address). The injector does not need to be installed or run as root. It does not write to any shared directories (like /usr/bin or /usr/lib). It stores downloads in a cache directory so that you don't need to download anything twice, and programs can still be used when you are off-line.

Install it!

Read more

Developers

FAQ

See also:

• Release notes (all versions)
• Testing development versions

Packages

RPMs

• Fedora - a package is in Fedora (thanks to Michel Alexandre Salim), so just do:

  # yum install zeroinstall-injector

  Fedora 7: Fedora 7 went out with an old version which couldn't install anything (see bug #250168). This has now been fixed in an update.

• OpenSUSE zeroinstall-injector-0.33-3suse.i586.rpm (OpenSUSE 10.3 RPM) (copied from OpenSUSE build service)

Experimental binary and source RPMs: More up-to-date RPMs are available for some systems through the SUSE build service. Please test these and report back (DO NOT install the -test packages). Note that the Mandriva package doesn't work on 2007.1 without a minor fix.

Debs

• Debian/oldstable (sarge) zeroinstall-injector_0.22-1_all.deb (Debian package; Python 2.3)
  Debian/stable (etch) zeroinstall-injector_0.34-1_all.deb (Debian package; python-central)
  Debian/testing (lenny) Zero Install is part of the main Debian archive, so you can get it with:

  # apt-get install zeroinstall-injector

• Ubuntu (breezy/dapper) zeroinstall-injector_0.22-1_all_ubuntu.deb (Ubuntu package; Python 2.4)
  Ubuntu (edgy) zeroinstall-injector_0.30-0ubuntu1_all.deb
  Ubuntu (feisty/gutsy/hardy) Zero Install is in Feisty, Gutsy and Hardy (Universe), so you can just do:

  $ sudo apt-get install zeroinstall-injector

  However, the Debian/etch package is more up-to-date than this version, so you may prefer to install that.

• Knoppix 5 works using the Debian package; use apt-get update; apt-get install -f to fetch the dependencies
• Nokia 770 zeroinstall-injector_0.19_arm.deb download page (Nokia 770 Debian package contributed by Niklas Höglund; Python 2.4)

Other

• Slackware 10.2 0install-0.27-noarch-1_slack10.2.tgz (Slackware 10.2 package) (contributed by Peter Santoro)
  Slackware 12 zeroinstall-injector-0.32-i686-2_slack12.0_mjk.tgz (Slackware 12 package) (contributed by MilkaJinka)
• FreeBSD /usr/ports/devel/zeroinstall-injector (Dylan Cochran)
• Gentoo zeroinstall-injector is in Portage.
• Solaris works (follow instructions below)
• GoboLinux instructions (anyone want to create a recipe?)
• Mac OS X sysutils/zeroinstall-injector in MacPorts (Anders F Björklund):
  

  $ sudo port install zeroinstall-injector

• Microsoft Windows is not currently supported, as it lacks the fork system call. This should be easy to work around, if any Windows developers want to volunteer.
• Other (follow instructions below)

If an injector package for your distribution is listed above, install that and then try using it! Otherwise, follow the instructions below to install using the generic tarball.

Continue to tutorial

Installing from tarball

To use Zero Install, you will need:

• Python (version 2.4 or later, including any -dev package).
• GnuPG (to check the digital signatures).
• xdg-utils (optional; GNOME and KDE desktop integration).
• PyGTK 2.0 or later, including python-glade2 (only needed for the GUI).

Download the latest .tar.bz2 archive from the download page (and the corresponding .sig file if you want to verify it), or using wget:

$ wget http://kent.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/zero-install/zeroinstall-injector-0.34.tar.bz2
$ wget http://kent.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/zero-install/zeroinstall-injector-0.34.tar.bz2.sig

Check that the signature is correct using GPG (this also ensures that GPG is installed correctly). You'll need my GPG key, which you can download and import using --recv-key (or manually):

$ gpg --recv-key --keyserver subkeys.pgp.net 59A53CC1
$ gpg zeroinstall-injector-0.34.tar.bz2.sig
gpg: Signature made Wed 18 Jun 2008 18:15:01 BST using DSA key ID 59A53CC1
gpg: Good signature from "Thomas Leonard <XXXXX@gmail.com>"
gpg: Good signature from "Thomas Leonard <XXXXX@users.sourceforge.net>"
gpg: WARNING: This key is not certified with a trusted signature!
gpg:          There is no indication that the signature belongs to the owner.
Primary key fingerprint: 9242 9807 C985 3C07 44A6  8B9A AE07 8280 59A5 3CC1

The warning is just to tell you that you haven't yet established that the key really belongs to me (ultra-paranoid users will now cross-check the finger-print using some other source of information).

You should now extract the archive, and change directory inside it:

$ tar xjf zeroinstall-injector-0.34.tar.bz2
$ cd zeroinstall-injector-0.34

$ sudo python setup.py install

$ python setup.py install --home ~ --install-data ~/.local
$ export PATH=$HOME/bin:$PATH
$ export PYTHONPATH=$HOME/lib/python

error: invalid Python installation: unable to open /usr/lib/python2.5/config/Makefile

You need to install the python-dev package, not just python.

package init file 'zeroinstall/0launch-gui/__init__.py' not found (or not a regular file)

This is just a warning and is harmless.

You now have two new commands: 0launch, which takes the URL of a program and runs it, and 0alias, which lets you use short names instead of URLs.

Continue to tutorial