Re: [Lazarus] Installer recommendations

2011-08-01 Thread Hans-Peter Diettrich 

Mark Morgan Lloyd schrieb:

The thing that seems really painful to me is that a program which (say) 
uses database facilities would have to have a way of asking the target 
OS's package system for the name of the package that contained the 
appropriate libraries. This probably implies talking to a repository 
server, and also implies a build-time decision as to what versions of 
each distro it is to be qualified for.


Some years ago, when I had to dig into automake, I got the idea of an 
platform manager. We already have OS specific parts in the FPC 
libraries, which could be extended for more services. Then we only have 
to agree about the API, and find a person for every OS, which keeps the 
extensions up to date.


DoDi


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Re: [Lazarus] Installer recommendations

2011-08-01 Thread Mark Morgan Lloyd 

Henry Vermaak wrote:

On 1 August 2011 10:24, Mark Morgan Lloyd
 wrote:

I wonder if I could phrase the OP's question in a slightly different way.

Allowing that Linux and other unix-style OSes have package formats of
various kinds, and allowing that an MSI file is just another implementation
of the same sort of thing, is there a "meta installer" that can at the very
least be used to build dependency lists etc.?


I guess so, but as you say, it probably would only be a skeleton.
Which I think is fine.  Things like driver installs are totally
different, even between linux distros.  There are installers that
bypass the os specific installing mechanisms (e.g. just copy files).
I think this is a supremely bad idea.  The various package managers
have saved me lots of hassle over the years.


The thing that seems really painful to me is that a program which (say) 
uses database facilities would have to have a way of asking the target 
OS's package system for the name of the package that contained the 
appropriate libraries. This probably implies talking to a repository 
server, and also implies a build-time decision as to what versions of 
each distro it is to be qualified for.


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markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk

[Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues]

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Re: [Lazarus] Installer recommendations

2011-08-01 Thread Henry Vermaak 
On 1 August 2011 10:24, Mark Morgan Lloyd
 wrote:
>
> I wonder if I could phrase the OP's question in a slightly different way.
>
> Allowing that Linux and other unix-style OSes have package formats of
> various kinds, and allowing that an MSI file is just another implementation
> of the same sort of thing, is there a "meta installer" that can at the very
> least be used to build dependency lists etc.?

I guess so, but as you say, it probably would only be a skeleton.
Which I think is fine.  Things like driver installs are totally
different, even between linux distros.  There are installers that
bypass the os specific installing mechanisms (e.g. just copy files).
I think this is a supremely bad idea.  The various package managers
have saved me lots of hassle over the years.

> Debian and derivatives have a utility called  alien  that can be used to
> convert between package formats, but it seems to me to be unfortunate if a
> programmer has to go through a sequence of stages to build a package for
> Debian, another for Ubuntu which might have different locations or symlinks
> for e.g. database libraries, another for Fedora and then finally something
> similar for Windows.

I agree, it's a massive pain.  Perhaps someone will come up with some
clever specification that everyone will adhere to.  Most likely not.

Henry

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Re: [Lazarus] Installer recommendations

2011-08-01 Thread Henry Vermaak 
On 31 July 2011 22:43, Graeme Geldenhuys  wrote:
> On 31 July 2011 22:39, Henry Vermaak wrote:
>> It's an interface to the Windows Installer where you define all the
>> specifics of your project in an XML file.  It the compiles and links
>> into an msi file.
>
> I can't comment on WiX (never knew about it), but I can say our
> company had terrible experiences with Windows Installer (msi files).
> Apps kept restoring, it's a bitch to actually uninstall an app,
> upgrading apps where a nightmare too. So much so, what we reverted
> back to an old version of InstallShield Developer.  So I guess your
> mileage my vary. :-/

Probably a badly constructed msi file.  Who made it?  I've never had
bad installers with wix generated msi (and I've made hundreds).  It
compiles the xml first, so it can give warnings/errors.

Henry

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Re: [Lazarus] Installer recommendations [ot]

2011-08-01 Thread Lukasz Sokol 
On 01/08/2011 08:09, Graeme Geldenhuys wrote:
> On 08/01/2011 02:55 AM, Hans-Peter Diettrich wrote:
>>
>> I can second that bad experience. Recently I was short on disk space, 
>> and wanted to uninstall several applications. Unfortunately the MSI 
>> rejected the uninstalls - due to lack of disk space :-(
> 
> 
> We have had that too. Makes you wonder what the Microsoft guys are
> smoking? :-)
> 
> 
> Regards,
>   - Graeme -
> 

Another Ballmer Peak ;) ?
http://xkcd.com/323/

l. ;)


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Re: [Lazarus] Installer recommendations

2011-08-01 Thread Mark Morgan Lloyd 

Henry Vermaak wrote:

On 31 July 2011 17:18, David M. Lawrence  wrote:

Back in the ancient days when I got Delphi, it was bundled with a version of
InstallShield.  Can ya'll recommend any decent -- preferably free --
replacements?  If you like the Windows installer system, can anyone point me
to a decent tutorial explaining how to use it?


I can strongly recommend the Windows Installer XML (WiX) toolset:

http://wix.sourceforge.net/

It's an interface to the Windows Installer where you define all the
specifics of your project in an XML file.  It the compiles and links
into an msi file.  Documentation and tutorials are good.  I've
switched some of our products over to it and we haven't looked back.
It even does automatic driver installs.


I wonder if I could phrase the OP's question in a slightly different way.

Allowing that Linux and other unix-style OSes have package formats of 
various kinds, and allowing that an MSI file is just another 
implementation of the same sort of thing, is there a "meta installer" 
that can at the very least be used to build dependency lists etc.?


Debian and derivatives have a utility called  alien  that can be used to 
convert between package formats, but it seems to me to be unfortunate if 
a programmer has to go through a sequence of stages to build a package 
for Debian, another for Ubuntu which might have different locations or 
symlinks for e.g. database libraries, another for Fedora and then 
finally something similar for Windows.


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markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk

[Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues]

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Re: [Lazarus] Installer recommendations

2011-08-01 Thread Graeme Geldenhuys 
On 08/01/2011 02:55 AM, Hans-Peter Diettrich wrote:
> 
> I can second that bad experience. Recently I was short on disk space, 
> and wanted to uninstall several applications. Unfortunately the MSI 
> rejected the uninstalls - due to lack of disk space :-(


We have had that too. Makes you wonder what the Microsoft guys are
smoking? :-)


Regards,
  - Graeme -

-- 
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http://fpgui.sourceforge.net/


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Re: [Lazarus] Installer recommendations

2011-07-31 Thread Hans-Peter Diettrich 

Graeme Geldenhuys schrieb:

On 31 July 2011 22:39, Henry Vermaak wrote:

It's an interface to the Windows Installer where you define all the
specifics of your project in an XML file.  It the compiles and links
into an msi file.


I can't comment on WiX (never knew about it), but I can say our
company had terrible experiences with Windows Installer (msi files).


I can second that bad experience. Recently I was short on disk space, 
and wanted to uninstall several applications. Unfortunately the MSI 
rejected the uninstalls - due to lack of disk space :-(


DoDi


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Re: [Lazarus] Installer recommendations

2011-07-31 Thread Graeme Geldenhuys 
On 31 July 2011 22:39, Henry Vermaak wrote:
> It's an interface to the Windows Installer where you define all the
> specifics of your project in an XML file.  It the compiles and links
> into an msi file.

I can't comment on WiX (never knew about it), but I can say our
company had terrible experiences with Windows Installer (msi files).
Apps kept restoring, it's a bitch to actually uninstall an app,
upgrading apps where a nightmare too. So much so, what we reverted
back to an old version of InstallShield Developer.  So I guess your
mileage my vary. :-/


-- 
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  - Graeme -


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Re: [Lazarus] Installer recommendations

2011-07-31 Thread Henry Vermaak 
On 31 July 2011 17:18, David M. Lawrence  wrote:
> Back in the ancient days when I got Delphi, it was bundled with a version of
> InstallShield.  Can ya'll recommend any decent -- preferably free --
> replacements?  If you like the Windows installer system, can anyone point me
> to a decent tutorial explaining how to use it?

I can strongly recommend the Windows Installer XML (WiX) toolset:

http://wix.sourceforge.net/

It's an interface to the Windows Installer where you define all the
specifics of your project in an XML file.  It the compiles and links
into an msi file.  Documentation and tutorials are good.  I've
switched some of our products over to it and we haven't looked back.
It even does automatic driver installs.

Henry

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Re: [Lazarus] Installer recommendations

2011-07-31 Thread Graeme Geldenhuys 
On 31 July 2011 18:18, David M. Lawrence wrote:
> InstallShield.  Can ya'll recommend any decent -- preferably free --
> replacements?

http://www.installjammer.com/

https://sourceforge.net/projects/mseinstaller/


Never used any of them, but they are open source and free. The latter
one is implemented in Object Pascal as well.

I have also create a cross-platform installer for our company, but I
haven't received the okay yet to release it as open source.

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  - Graeme -


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Re: [Lazarus] Installer recommendations

2011-07-31 Thread Frank Church 
On 31 July 2011 17:18, David M. Lawrence  wrote:

> Back in the ancient days when I got Delphi, it was bundled with a version
> of InstallShield.  Can ya'll recommend any decent -- preferably free --
> replacements?  If you like the Windows installer system, can anyone point me
> to a decent tutorial explaining how to use it?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Dave
>
>
I use Inno Setup  it is Pascal based.
I can't compare it to others because it is the only one I have used in
earnest.


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[Lazarus] Installer recommendations

2011-07-31 Thread David M. Lawrence 
Back in the ancient days when I got Delphi, it was bundled with a 
version of InstallShield.  Can ya'll recommend any decent -- preferably 
free -- replacements?  If you like the Windows installer system, can 
anyone point me to a decent tutorial explaining how to use it?


Thanks,

Dave

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 David M. Lawrence| Home:  (804) 559-9786
 7471 Brook Way Court | Fax:   (804) 559-9787
 Mechanicsville, VA 23111 | Email: d...@fuzzo.com
 USA  | http:  http://fuzzo.com
--

"All drains lead to the ocean."  -- Gill, Finding Nemo

"We have met the enemy and he is us."  -- Pogo

"No trespassing
 4/17 of a haiku"  --  Richard Brautigan


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