RE: Gnome/Linux Application Installer

["Fox, Kevin M" <kmfox bhi010 bhi-erc com>]

Could there be a dialog program written that detects wether your in X or not
and then displays options? That would be nice. It could be added into the
RPM or have it installed on the box already...

I do kinda see the point redhat has with not wanting to show dialogs. This
allows for automatic updates and other things. Hmm...

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Ben 'The Con Man' Kahn [SMTP:xkahn@cybersites.com]
> Sent:	Wednesday, December 23, 1998 10:26 AM
> To:	Fox, Kevin M
> Cc:	'Jason Tackaberry'
> Subject:	RE: Gnome/Linux Application Installer
> 
> 
> 	That's right.  You can run a script before and after the install.
> I think I remember this being just a shell script, so you can run any
> program at all.  
> 
> 	HOWEVER, interactive input is frowned upon.  And printing things
> to stdout is too...  (Think about the redhat installer.)  Debian allows
> and encourages prompting. (again, if I recall correctly)  
> 
> 	Anyway, one thing we could do immediately would be to grab
> stdout/stdin and put it in a small graphical dialog box. 
> 
> 	(An example of printing to STDOUT is the sshd install.  Give it a
> try.)
> 
> On Wed, 23 Dec 1998, Fox, Kevin M wrote:
> 
> > From what I have read about RPMS you can have them do just about
> anything.
> > Thay can run programs, so you can have it come up with dialogs but for
> ease
> > of use, dialogs have (at least I think) never been used.
> > 
> > > > 	And that's just the beginning!  What if things are a little
> more
> > > > complex?  What if the application needs to ask questions from the
> user
> > > > doing the install?
> > > 
> > > Which is why I think some sort of scripting language would be needed.
> > > That
> > > way you can script dialogs for the user, and also make a more custom
> flow
> > > for
> > > the install.
> > > 
> > > I don't know much about the guts of rpm and deb, but I doubt they
> support
> > > this.
> > > We need to spec out a format that allows scripting, and is also smart
> > > enough
> > > to properly clean up old versions of the package (although RPM seems
> to do
> > > a good job of this).
> > > 
> > > Jason.
> > > 
> > > 
> > > -- 
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> > 
> 
> 						-Ben
> 
> ------------------------------------ |\      _,,,--,,_  ,) ----------
> Benjamin Kahn                        /,`.-'`'   -,  ;-;;'
> (212) 924 - 2220                    |,4-  ) )-,_ ) /\
> ben@cybersites.com --------------- '---''(_/--' (_/-' ---------------
>           Meet Linux: Forrest Gump as an operating system. 
>