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Loki releases an installer
Loki Entertainment has just released their Installer program under the LGPL license. This installer uses an XML description file to describe a package, and provides both a console and a GTk front-end to install it. I think this installer is excellent for newbies. What do you think?
I use stow for that purpose and it does quite a good job.
http://www.gnu.org/software/stow/
Sounds great. If the installer detects the package management system being used on the computer and registers the stuff to install into the package database it is great to the power of 2.
If it doesn't, that is something that should be added IMHO. And to make the installer lightweight, each distribution could come with a loadable module that the installer could load to talk to the package management system.
This is a terrible idea. Loki should release their software in standard .deb/.rpm package formats and let the distributions handle installation, dependencies, removal, and upgrades. This is what distributions do! Let them do it! We don't need an "Install Shield".
WE ALREADY HAVE INSTALLERS which are best suited to the distributions on which they run!
You want this to make it easier for the newbie? Why ask the newbie to learn yet another installer when he already knows one for his distribution?
I have read it. And i do not agree.
Should I be happy because a crappy way of installing the program gets easier to do?
No thx. Commercial products should be made as packages and thats it. They should check the dependencies and put entries into the install-database, so that I can spot them, check the integrity and uninstall them later.
If supporting several different package-systems troubles the commercial vendors, they can always think of something to make package "on-the-fly":
1) Check the system, decide on type of the package
2) make a binary-only package with pre-install, post-install and post-uninstal scripts.
3) install using the native package-manager.
If they want a colorfull interface, it is OK with me, but installing stuff on its own is completely irresponsible - this is a job for the "RPM"-, or "DEB"- package manager. Magic words are:
DEPENDENCIES, and UNINSTALL!
Actually, if you grep through the code for the installer you'll find that it actually uses RPM. So everyone's panic about yet another installer is unwarrented. It might be a good idea for people to look into things a bit before flying off the handle.
I think that it's important to have a standard install interface for those that want it. A uniform way to do things will make one of the most difficult processes on linux, installing, a bit more intuitive.
Sure, there's rpms, debs, glint, apt, kpackage, etc. However, none of them are as easy as they could be. Look at the mac and windows: click-click. They don't require the user to know what the packaging format is, or what programs are used to install them.
We need fire and forget installs. Execute the package, and start the program. It doesn't matter what format it uses, rpm's deb's slp's or tgz's. Does it want to compile on its own? No problem, pop up a dialog with a progress bar.
I think Loki could well have a winner. An installer targeted towards the game-player crowd could well be what we need.
I'd love to hear more about it, perhaps see some screenshots.
[Science] is one of the very few things that raises human life a little above farce and gives it the grace of tragedy.
/*This is a terrible idea. Loki should release their software in standard .deb/.rpm package formats and let the distributions handle installation, dependencies, removal, and upgrades. This is what distributions do! Let them do it! We don't need an "Install Shield". */
/opt/packagname anyway? Uninstall is through the tradtional, flexible and powerful (albeit rather unfriendly) rm -rf /opt/packagename
Er.. Yes we do. Tried to install xyz deb on Redhat? vice versa? alien is not a panacea. How about either on Slackware? Redhat RPMS on SuSE -
I have had ones that failed, even with compat installed. tar.gz is the only distribution neutral system - and for what do you need package management when commercial software is supposed to install into
Its also a hassle to package for each obscure little variant of Linux with different packagmanagement, libc's, et al, and then try and do installation support.
/*You want this to make it easier for the newbie? Why ask the newbie to learn yet another installer when he already knows one for his distribution?*/
What newbie ever learned to use their package manager at levels lower than point and click? They don't have to use anything else for this installer either.
George Russell
Let me answer as well.
.rpm instead.
... ouch) ;-)
1) Debian will never, and cannot, give Debian friendly installers to all commerical Linux software products. Even now, when they are comparitively rare.
1b) Every installer I have seen allows you to choose a destination path. Put it in opt, install as not root if you want to be *SURE* your system will not be gratuitously messed with.
1c) apt get upgrade requires Debian packages to be made. See 1a
2a)Dependency checking and easy updating go out the Window when I must strip a deb to tar.gz , and don't convert well when making deb
2b) Dependency checks suck on different systems using the same package management system - see the three way problem of using non native RPM's on SuSE, Caldera && Redhat + others.
2c) 2b will happen to Debian when its derivatives become popular and differ, even in trivial ways.
3a) Making hassles for vendors makes vendors Distribution specific or limited for support reasons (and also library problems)
3b) I don't like Software for Linux version 5.2, do you?
4) What newbie is going to be upgrading an entire distro - its much more likely that they want to install a single package, with a click, install. They probably do not know of dpkg -i or equivalent, and would not be too happy with it if they did. Newbies also do not know what they want or need to install / upgrade, so are unlikely to do so one package at a time, or all at once (over a typical net connection
4b) You expect newbies to use the shell?
George Russell
I have mixed feelings here. On the one hand, it's great that Loki is releasing this, and it looks to be a much better way of installing software than simply having a random perl script to unpack tars (VMware) or something.
/usr/local/stow and rm -rf the whole lot. And how do I track what I've installed once I install more than two or three? How do I update to the latest patchlevel? Download patches and run them? If I find a file and can't remember what program it belongs to, how do I check?
On the other hand...
I have a great aversion to installing random cruft on my system. I have an even greater aversion to letting a random program install random cruft on my system. Is there a separate file to run to uninstall each program? (looks like it, in fact you have to build a custom program for each app that needs to be uninstalled) So to delete stuff installed with this program I have to hunt down the uninstaller. Probably better to just install in
Loki would be doing a much greater service to themselves and the world by having the installer auto-generate packages from the generic package description. InstallShield-type stuff, where each program in the world ships with its own special installer, is an ugly and inelegant hack. The most redeeming quality this installer could have would be if it took command-line options to specify all the attributes of the install (eg, bindir=, datadir=, etc) and skip the interactive stuff -- this would allow halfway-useful packages to be made fairly easily. Ah well..
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
Back in the good old days, on good old RISC OS, we didn't need installers. To install a good old program, one copied its good old 'application directory' (that's enough goodness and oldness. -Ed.) from a CD, floppy or the 'net onto wherever you wanted it to be on the hard disc. To move it, you moved the application directory. To run it, you double-clicked on it. To remove it, you just deleted it. It didn't hide stuff in lib or man. It didn't scatter keys about the registry with reckless abandon. No shortcuts copied into a start menu, no changes to user paths, it just worked.(*)
I would really, really love to see a decent form of application encapsulation on Unix OSes and, even more, on Windows, where a half-installed application more often than not requires a complete OS re-install. Which is a bit crap. In case you didn't notice.
* - well, it just worked, until some of the bigger software companies decided to start using installers, usually in order to implement some hideous copy-protection scheme, or because installers were the trendy way Windows did it, or sometimes just to be contrary. After that, one tended to find that moving programs didn't work, upgrading the OS didn't work, installing them on newer versions of the OS or hardware didn't work, and applications would occasionally just refuse to run, claiming they were corrupt. Just like good old Windows. (That was a sarcastic "good old", BTW, so it doesn't count.)
An installer is just one more part of an application that can go wrong. I wish we could rid the universe of 'em.
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It does - it keeps track of all the files and directories that were created during the install and generates a small "uninstall" shell script that will remove them all on demand.
Stéphane Peter
Stéphane Peter
Codehost, Inc.