Add pixi package to winget

[traversaro]

Problem description

I recently set up a new Windows machine, and I installed almost everything I needed in the PC (including Visual Studio compilers via VS BuildTools) via winget, the Windows Package Manager (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/package-manager/), and I found it quite convenient (I never used it before).

I do not feel enough about this at the moment to work directly on this (and mantain the resulting package), but anyhow I thought for dissemination it could be useful to have a pixi package on winget, to streamline installation on Windows. See conda-forge/miniforge#163, microsoft/winget-pkgs#16674 and https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Amicrosoft%2Fwinget-pkgs+CondaForge&type=pullrequests for similar issues/PRs for miniforge.

[wolfv]

Do you think we could use Winget as well to make it easier to get the MSVC compilers in conda-forge? Is winget available by default these days?

[traversaro]

Do you think we could use Winget as well to make it easier to get the MSVC compilers in conda-forge?

I am afraid what winget just runs the VS installer, see https://github.com/microsoft/winget-pkgs/blob/c8cd037949988530141dc6c276cea432144df74c/manifests/m/Microsoft/VisualStudio/2019/BuildTools/16.11.25/Microsoft.VisualStudio.2019.BuildTools.installer.yaml#L88 .

Is winget available by default these days?

It was in my Windows Version 10.0.22621.2134 freshly installed.

[wolfv]

Cool – do you know if it requires user interaction?

[traversaro]

Cool – do you know if it requires user interaction?

I am not really sure, basically it opened some window during the installation, I can't recall if I closed myself or not. Furthermore, by default C++ part of Visual Studio are not installed, I installed manually them from the GUI, but perhaps it is possible to enable them via terminal.

[dhirschfeld]

Do you think we could use Winget as well to make it easier to get the MSVC compilers in conda-forge?

Is installing the compilers an issue? I've done it previously similarly to:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/install/build-tools-container?view=vs-2022#create-and-build-the-dockerfile

Worked fine, though took an age to build the container.

[wolfv]

Ah cool, this is good to know. I don't think the vc-feedstock package has code to grab the compilers if they are not yet on the system. I think that could be a very nice enhancement (since we cannot repackage them, at least make it easy to install them when needed).

[maphew]

Winget can't be used for Pixi unless/until it's packaged into an installer:

At this time installers must be MSIX, MSI, APPX, or .exe application installers. Script-based installers and fonts are not currently supported.
-- https://github.com/microsoft/winget-pkgs

[baszalmstra]

We have an msi installer in the releases, would that work?

[pavelzw]

There are both an msi file and an exe in the releases section.

https://github.com/prefix-dev/pixi/releases/download/v0.9.1/pixi-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc.msi

https://github.com/prefix-dev/pixi/releases/download/v0.9.1/pixi-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc.exe

[maphew]

Oh! Thanks I didn't see those. I looked at in install.ps1 and thought that was the extent of it. I've submitted packages to winget before and am happy to take this one on if it's still an open task.

[maphew]

PR issued: microsoft/winget-pkgs#128712. Please look over the .yaml files to ensure the right values are set for Author, Publisher, etc.

[wolfv]

Awesome @maphew 🚀

[traversaro]

Thanks @maphew ! Just as a curiosity, there is any mechanism for the automatic update of the package or this needs to be done manually at every new pixi release?

[wolfv]

Maybe "Komac" helps? :) https://github.com/russellbanks/Komac (I was wondering the same, @traversaro)

[traversaro]

miniforge3-related PRs seems to be at least semi-automatic: https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Amicrosoft%2Fwinget-pkgs+miniforge3&type=pullrequests .

[pavelzw]

It's probably the same as with homebrew where the core maintainers do automated PRs for all packages.

[maphew]

:) Komac is what I used to create the package. I read that it can be integrated with CI via https://github.com/vedantmgoyal2009/winget-releaser.

[maphew]

Winget can't be used for Pixi unless/until it's packaged into an installer:

At this time installers must be MSIX, MSI, APPX, or .exe application installers. Script-based installers and fonts are not currently supported.
-- https://github.com/microsoft/winget-pkgs

Apparently zip is supported now too, microsoft/winget-cli#140, though I've yet to locate a doc page on it and don't know why it's not noted yet on front of repo.

[maphew]

The PR has been merged :) Pixi is available via Winget.

CMD C:\Users\matt
» winget install prefix-dev.pixi
Found pixi [prefix-dev.pixi] Version 0.9.1
This application is licensed to you by its owner.
Microsoft is not responsible for, nor does it grant any licenses to, third-party packages.
Downloading https://github.com/prefix-dev/pixi/releases/download/v0.9.1/pixi-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc.msi
  ██████████████████████████████  10.0 MB / 10.0 MB
Successfully verified installer hash
Starting package install...
Successfully installed

CMD C:\Users\matt
» where pixi
C:\Users\matt\.pixi\bin\pixi.exe

CMD C:\Users\matt
» pixi --version
pixi 0.9.1

Should this issue be closed? Or simply updated to add "and add Winget Releaser to Gitgub actions"?

[pavelzw]

Do we need to maintain a releaser? I would guess that the team at winget try to automatically update all packages there.

We should add it to the readme though.

[maphew]

I'm pretty sure the winget team doesn't auto check for updates, else Winget Releaser wouldn't exist.