With the Q-Package (virtual applications), Q-layer introduces an application packaging system, that has the advantages of a conventional packaging system but not the complexity. Q-Package takes away all the packaging difficulties and is targeted specifically at system administrators, who are not considered developers.

A number of existing open-source applications has been packaged as a Q-Package. These packaged open-source applications are called "QPackages".

About

The Qpackages library is an initiative of Q-layer. The target audience includes system administrators, developers and anyone involved in installation, configuration and maintenance of software packages on servers and desktop computers. Q-Packages framework is like RPM or Apt-get, but more advanced and not tied to a single distribution or operating system.

A Q-Package is an application that has been packaged for easy installation using the application packaging framework of Q-Shell. Q-Shell is a powerful and easy-to-use cross platform shell.
Q-Shell can be installed on Linux, OpenSolaris and Windows, it provides powerful features for system administration and it is the primary user interface to download, install and handle all Q-Packages.
Q-Shell can be downloaded from http://www.pylabs.org.

Benefits

For end-users

• Cross-platform uniform installation of applications: Linux/Unix, Windows and OpenSolaris (Mac OSX coming soon)
  
  
• Integrated configuration management: configure each application from Q-Shell using a standard set of commands
  
  
• Automatic updates
  
  
• Dependency management
  
  
• Fully sandboxed installation on Linux and OpenSolaris (no conflicts between applications and libraries)
  
  
• Partially sandboxed installation on Windows

For developers

• Packaging your application as a Q-Package gives users seamless access to your application, you don't have to worry about pre-installation requirements
  
  
• You can assign quality levels to each application and maintain different branches in the field (testing, production etc.)
  
  
• Very easy dependency management: e.g. if your application requires Apache, just create a dependency on Apache
  
  
• Uniform configuration and control of all applications in Q-Shell: e.g. manage Apache by using commands such as q.manage.apache.start()