Re: Call For Articles

[Ingo Ruhnke <grumbel@gmx.de>]

Pierre Phaneuf <pp@ludusdesign.com> writes:

> Ingo Ruhnke wrote:
 
>> Yep, a install script for tar.gz files could be usefull, but I think
>> it would only be usefull for larger packages, where you have some
>> options when installing (for example CD games, where you can choose
>> which data should be installed), on a simple 2MB tar.gz there is maybe
>> nothing  which is worth the efford to customize the package with an
>> install script.
 
> I think mostly *every* package has at least one option: where to
> install. And there are generally two modes of installation: a normal way
> (say, set the prefix to /usr or /opt) and a "local" way (put everything
> in $HOME/package-name).

I compile most stuff from source (automake), the normal way would be
do install under another prefix, since the binary tar.gz would contain
the subdirs: 

$prefix/games/THEGAME
$prefix/share/games/THEGAME/
$prefix/lib/games/THEGAME
...

Installing under a different directory would just mean to change the
prefix, that wouldn't look very nice under opt/ or home/, since you
would get some unused subdirs under the prefix dir but that would
cause the lessest throuble.
Flatten the directory sturcture would cause some more throuble and
would make think more difficult for the programmer.
 
> The idea is that some people don't have RPM. :-)

You could still maintain different files, a RPM, a tar.gz, a debian
package, etc. But that is real work, a simple tar.gz which generates
the other throu a install script could be interessting.
 
> And having the install script detect if that system uses RPM is a very
> nifty idea. It would allow very simple removal of the package afterward.

Yep, I have never seen that in practice, but sounds interessting.
-- 
                                  http://dark.x.dtu.dk/~grumbel/pingus/ | 
Ingo Ruhnke <grumbel@gmx.de>             http://home.pages.de/~grumbel/ |
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