[Lazarus] cross-distro (and OS) app installation - what would you like?

[Graeme Geldenhuys]

On 20/01/2010, Marco van de Voort <marcov at stack.nl> wrote:
>
> (it might be wise to check out in how far these named programs are shared
>  linked)

True, those mentioned (and ones like ATI and Nvida drivers) tend to be
more on the commercial side of things. But then again, our company
products are commercial products. :)


>  > * The setup must be configurable at runtime. We have a single setup.xml
>  >   file that controls the setup.
>
> (Doesn't this violate single file?)

No, not from the end-users point of view. After creating the setup,
one further step is taken using the tool 'makeself'. The setup files
(setup binaries, data, setup.xml etc) are packaged with makeself into
a single self-extracting file. This is the file that the end-user will
download and run. Makeself also has the feature that once unpacked, it
can run a command - in our case it will fire off the executable of the
"real" unpacked setup files. Once the command makeself executed is
done, it even cleans up after itself by removing the unpacked
temporary files.

Think of it as a tarball that unpacks and runs itself. Importantly,
saving the user from having to do it manually, and sticking to the
"one file" deployment. Obviously if the product is deployed on a CD or
DVD, the 'makeself' step is not required (and doesn't require a temp
location on the hard drive).

For Windows it works similar (but not with the Makeself tool obviously).

>
> Do you plan to support windowmaker? A lot of packages do this wrong under
>  Windowmaker.

If Window Maker supports the LSB or freedesktop.org standards it
should work. A quick search on Wikipedia says the last stable release
was in 2005, so it might not support the latest desktop standards.
I'll make a note and double check for you.


> Autoinstall of CHM help.

:-)


-- 
Regards,
  - Graeme -


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