Hi,
Rob Ogilvie wrote:
Hello-
I downloaded OOo 2.0 beta 2 (Linux x86 "install") last night and was
shocked to discover it is being distributed as a tarball full of RPMs. I
wonder who made the decision to begin distributing OOo in RPM format and
how we can go about getting that changed to something a bit more
standard.
What installer would be more standard than RPM? RPM was chosen because
it is part of LSB, which is about the only applicable standard there is.
I'm assuming OOo is as binary compatible in 2.0 beta 2 as it
was in 1.0... if this isn't the case, then distribution makers are going
to need to start building it themselves.
The downloadable version is still highly binary compatible. But
distribution makers have been compiling even previous versions
themselves nevertheless (for various reasons).
If it *is* as binary compatible as it used to be, why would RPMs be
chosen?
Summarizing:
- The old installer was not maintainable any more
- The old installer did not properly integrate with *any* packaging system
- The build system supports building packages for many packagers
- We have to make a choice what to offer for download
- RPM is the most standard packaging system available on Linux (LSB)
And why would you tarball up a bunch of RPMs for distribution?
There are multiple packages to preserve (most of) the modularity of
installation that was present with the old installer and to make it
possible to do selective updates.
But people usually want to download a single file. Having to download
the packages individually is error prone.
There are a lot of folks out there who don't run RPM-based
distributions, such as myself. :-)
Even if your distribution is not RPM-based, you can probably install
RPM. You can also convert RPMs using tools such as alien or rpm2cpio.
A setup guide with installation instructions for most distros is
available somewhere on the site and will probably be included with the
final release.
Ciao Joerg
--
Joerg Barfurth Sun Microsystems - Desktop - Hamburg
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> using std::disclaimer <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Software Engineer [EMAIL PROTECTED]
OpenOffice.org Configuration http://util.openoffice.org
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