Get your software into Linux the easy way

It's always been possible to port your application into any Linux distribution. All you had to do was know how to compile and link your program with each distribution's libraries and then package it up in either DEB or RPM package. Easy! Right? Right??

OK, so actually it's never been that easy to move applications from Unix to Linux or from one Linux family to another. The basics are simple. It's all those nagging details of which library version is in one distribution and not in another and the like that makes porting programs a problem.

Now, thanks to the joint efforts of the Linux Foundation and openSUSE, any programmer has a straightforward way to get their program up and working in any Linux distribution without pulling out their hair. It's called the openSUSE Build Service. Despite the name, the Build Service actually enables you to create packages not just for openSUSE, but for the Red Hat family-CentOS, Fedora, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux-the Debian/Ubuntu group, and Mandriva.

In a statement, Amanda McPherson, the Linux Foundation's VP of marketing and developer programs said, "This is part of our ongoing mission to provide not only information, but real tools for Linux developers to empower them and make deploying applications on multiple Linux distributions as painless as possible. The openSUSE Build Service is a huge step forward for developers and ISVs (independent software vendors) that want to package their offerings for all major distros quickly and easily."

What the Foundation will be bringing to the table is an interface to the openSUSE Build Service via the Linux Developer Network. There, it will work in conjunction with the Foundation's AppChecker (Linux Application Checker). This program checks your program against the different versions of the LSB (Linux Standard Base), and against all the Linux distributions in the LSB Database.

After looking over your code, AppChecker presents you with a compatibility report of your application with the LSB and the various distributions. This, alone makes writing portable code much easier. Once you've got your program cleaned up you can then use the Build Service to get it ready to turn over to users on any of the supported distributions.

The Foundation will be using openSUSE Build Service 1.6. In this version, you can not only produce ready-to-run programs for x86 users but for ARM-chip users as well. While ARM is primarily an embedded device operating system at the moment, later this year we're going to start seeing netbooks built around ARM processors. Thus, with the LDN's Build Service, you'll be able to produce desktop applications that will be ready to go on both x86 and ARM netbooks without having to become an ARM expert.

This release, according to the Foundation, also includes support for building openSUSE appliances, live CDs, installable USB images, Xen images, and VMware images. With it, developers can also create their own custom openSUSE distribution.

Now, I'm no programmer, but I know what programmers do and the obstacles they face. I've played enough with AppChecker and Build Service to know that this is just the kind of one-two punch that will help any Linux developer knockout many of his porting problems. I highly recommend checking this service out.