[tor-talk] TBB as a deb (was Re: Tor 0.2.4.8-alpha is out)

[Roger Dingledine]

On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 07:28:34PM -0500, Micah Lee wrote:
> Are there plans to release the Tor Browser Bundle as a package in Tor's
> official repos, e.g. http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org/?
> 
> This would make keeping an up-to-date TBB much more convenient.

It sure would make things more convenient, I agree.

See for example
https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/3994
https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/5236

Basically there are a whole pile of logistical issues, stemming mainly
from the (quite reasonable) policies around how debs are allowed to
interact with each other.

So, it's something that a lot of smart Debian people have thought about,
and no clean-enough answer has emerged yet.

It is deeply unsatisfying to me that Linux, the platform most of our
developers use, is the one with the least user-friendly Tor package
support. But it will take a lot of juggling and coordination to produce
a solution that all sides find ok.

--Roger