Better OS choices for install commands

[lassik]

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I was lazy and started with the Emacs system-type variable. Its value range is kind of weird:

Special values:
  ‘gnu’          compiled for a GNU Hurd system.
  ‘gnu/linux’    compiled for a GNU/Linux system.
  ‘gnu/kfreebsd’ compiled for a GNU system with a FreeBSD kernel.
  ‘darwin’       compiled for Darwin (GNU-Darwin, macOS, ...).
  ‘ms-dos’       compiled as an MS-DOS application.
  ‘windows-nt’   compiled as a native W32 application.
  ‘cygwin’       compiled using the Cygwin library.
Anything else (in Emacs 26, the possibilities are: aix, berkeley-unix,
hpux, usg-unix-v) indicates some sort of Unix system.

I'll make another variable that checks uname or something so we can get handier values.

[lassik]

Is anyone here a hardcore Linux user? How should we differentiate between the distros, is debian/centos (i.e. apt/yum) good enough or should it be more specific? Do all apt-based distros have mostly the same names for the same packages, and likewise for all yum-based distros, or is it more complicated than that?

[D4N]

How should we differentiate between the distros

/etc/os-release is probably the best choice for that.

Do all apt-based distros have mostly the same names for the same packages, and likewise for all yum-based distros, or is it more complicated than that?

Sometimes yes, sometimes not. Also some distros don't have certain packages and some do. To be honest, I would suggest that every user should installs the tool via their preferred method, as a complete list of all tools is going to be a huge maintenance burden.

[lassik]

Thanks for the tips!

I guess the right thing to do would be to gather a complete list of formatter package names for e.g. the top 3 apt distros and the top 3 yum distros. If there are very few differences, just separate by apt/yum and use the names in the most popular apt distro and the most popular yum distro. Otherwise forget about the whole endeavor.

I'll postpone that task for a few months. Right now format-all has only a few hundred downloads so I don't think very many people would benefit, but maybe in the future :)