RE: GNOME Install Wizard?

["Fox, Kevin M" <KMFox mail bhi-erc com>]

here here. :)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: james-gnome@tainted.org [mailto:james-gnome@tainted.org]
> Sent: Thursday, June 24, 1999 4:19 PM
> To: gnome-list@gnome.org
> Subject: GNOME Install Wizard?
> 
> 
> I'm going to have to disagree with everyone who is thinking that
> GNOME is the right place for an "install wizard" application.
> 
> The correct place for this is in the underlying packaging
> mechanism (be it APT or RPM), for discussions sake, I'll use RPM.
> 
> First, some common misconceptions about RPM:
> 
> 1. You need to use --force to install anything.
> 2. RPM will break your system
> 3. RPM is for newbies
> 4. It's hard to install a directory of RPMs
> 5. It's hard to upgrade a directory of RPMs
> 6. RPM is Red Hat.  Red Hat is bad or something.
> 7. RPM is for people who don't build from source.
> 
> And my answers:
> 
> 1. If you --force the installation of something (this includes
> --nodeps), you'd better know what you're doing because chances are
> what you're installing won't work.  If you don't have the
> libraries or packages to resolve dependencies, or if RPM is
> complaining you're going to overwrite something that's needed,
> then RPM knows better than you.  Get and upgrade those packages
> too.
> 
> You should never need to install a system with --force or --nodeps
> (or most of the --ignore flags), unless you *REALLY* know what's
> going on.  IMHO the default 'rpm' tool shouldn't support them, and
> a secondary 'dangerousrpm' app should be used.
> 
> 2. RPM will only do what you tell it to.  See #1 about 'breaking
> your system'.  RPM's system breaking usually only occurs when
> -Upgrading or -Freshening an RPM and it plays with your
> configuration files.
> 
> 3. Packages are about trust.  That's why they can be PGP signed.  
> If you trust Red Hat to provide you with good packages, then you
> should feel that -ivh'ing a Red Hat RPM is like having built it
> and installed it yourself.  RPM is for people who don't have the
> time/energy/desire/CPU power to build every last package they own.
> 
> 4. rpm -ivh *.rpm will install all the rpm's in a directory,
> resolving interdependancies between packages automatically.
> 
> 5. This used to be true.  rpm -U'ing a set of rpm's in a directory
> used to install the ones that were not install before.  RPM 3.0
> provides a -Freshen which will only update existing RPM's.
> 
> 6. Every last line of source for RPM is LGPL'd.  Other
> distributions (such as SuSE) have benefitted from this fact.  If
> you think that a company that is proving you can make money and
> give out source is bad, so be it.
> 
> 7. RPM's are built from source.  You should be able to rpm
> --rebuild any .src.rpm onto your system and use your compiler and
> preferences.  You must of course trust (see #3) that the packager
> has put together their sources properly.
> 
> Having said all that, I believe RPM needs two things added to it:
> 
> Pre-install and post-install scripts:
> 
> These install scripts would come in three flavours, "OPTIONAL",
> "RECOMMENDED", and "REQUIRED".  The scripts would be able to store
> their settings in the RPM database so that -U'ing an RPM could be
> done automatically.
> 
> The scripts would work similar to the kernel configuration where
> the information and logic is abstracted from the display system.
> This would allow the installer to use GTK or ncurses, HTML or just
> the straight console display to query information from the user.
> 
> The "pre-install" script would be run before the package was
> installed.  For example, installing a set of CGI's via RPM would
> need to know where your CGI's are kept.  This would be a REQUIRED
> pre-install script.
> 
> The "post-install" script would be run after all the packages are
> installed.  For example installing the MySQL RPM would prompt you
> for a root password for your database.  This would be an OPTIONAL
> pre-install script.
> 
> Package makers should always error on the side of automation over
> security, but on the side of interactive over tossing files
> randomly.  The RPM tool should default on the side of interactive
> if stdin/stdout is a tty.
> 
> 2. Packaged RPM's
> 
> A "packaged RPM" would be 1 RPM file which contained sub-RPM
> files.  For example a "GNOME-2.0.i386.rpm" which was 40 megs and
> contained a complete installation.  Or, a
> "WordPerfect-8.0.i386.rpm" which would contain "WordPerfectApp",
> "WordPerfectFonts", and "WordPerfectAppleTalkPrinterDriver" RPM
> within it.
> 
> Combining the two features, you would posess the ability (in the
> case of WordPerfect, for example), to prompt the user for what
> Printer Driver they wish to use.  The display abstraction of the
> configuration language would allow KDE, GNOME, AfterStep, etc, to
> all use their own widget sets, and possibly even lead to a
> web-based installer.
> 
> ----
> 
> What this means.
> 
> This means that 'GNOME' is not the right place to solve the
> problem with an install wizard.  The "correct" place (IMHO) is in
> the installer tools.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> 	JAmes
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
>         FAQ: Frequently-Asked Questions at 
http://www.gnome.org/gnomefaq
         To unsubscribe: mail gnome-list-request@gnome.org with 
                       "unsubscribe" as the Subject.