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

[Vincent Snijders]

Graeme Geldenhuys schreef:
> On 20/01/2010, Vincent Snijders <vsnijders at vodafonevast.nl> wrote:
>>  To bad, the ideal setup creator would get a setup.xml and compile it to
>> .rpm, .deb, windows installer, .dmg with Mac OS X package, etc.
>>
>>  Kind of like the Lazarus idea, one source for many OS/widget set
>> combinations.
> 
> Good point, but I see a few problems.

Yes, it is hard, I was just dreaming about what I would like: instead of maintaining 
inno setups, deb packages build scripts, rpm specs and IceBerg files for Mac OS X, 
just maintaining one setup solution for all platforms, without sacrificing the user 
experiences and giving the users a familiar solution: windows installers on windows, 
deb packages on debian based distros, etc.
> 
> 1) Using the various packaging formats, those packages would have to
> be built on dedicated platforms. With the custom install and our
> supported platforms, I will be able to build setups from inside my one
> Linux system, using native FPC or a FPC cross-compiler.

I admit, that is true.

> 
> 2) The other point might be that now you have to learn all the various
> package management systems out there so you can build the various
> packages. That will be a huge task (I think).

It is. It didn't stop me from dreaming ...
> 
> 3) Using the package systems like dpkg or rpm, you cannot do the following:
>    * show a company logo or other branding
>    * view a readme file before the install
>    * select certain features to install (with help on each feature)
>    * have a one file install (a feature we would love on Linux)
>    * have other customization options during the install. Not easily
>      at least. I have seen a handful of .deb packages that prompt for
>      a Yes/No question, but that's about it. Most prompted in a console
>      window (ugly) and one or two prompted in a GTK2 dialog (no idea how).
> 

Yes, that is a familiar trade off. Some features are not supported for all package 
system (widget set). Other features you get with the package system (e.g. dependency 
checking and automated downloading on dependencies, when installing).

> 
> 
>>  But from the maintainer of fpgui which doesn't use an existing...
> <...snip...>
> 
> That's not nice. :-(

It was not the intention to say something that is not nice. But why is it not nice? 
I just noticed the way you treat platform independant widget sets is similar to the 
way you treat platform independant installers. You are consistent in you design 
principles. Or I am missing something?

Vincent