Hi Jan, Thanks for all the tips and the article. I wanted to use an RPM and DEB for this release because I really like the way Linux can resolve dependencies for packaged software. Unfortunately, making packages is hard to get right and there is much room for error. If I was making something open source I'd definitely try to go through distro maintainers. When I get some more time I want to look harder at tools like MojoSetup, Makeself, and Nixstaller. They get a lot of use by other indie game developers. -- Terry Welsh www.reallyslick.com
> > On 12/04/2012 12:59 AM, Terry Welsh wrote: >> I love developing on Linux, but >> windowing and packaging seem to be big issues. I supposed it's because >> of the scattered nature of Linux (many distros with many desktop >> managers, and packaging systems). > > Actually, the way to go is to prepare something that can be distributed > and then work with the packagers of the distros instead of trying to > supply your own "installer". They will handle the packaging, integration > with various desktop environments within their distro and even > distribution for you. > > The ideal case is when your application is open source - then make sure > that the build system is sane (i.e. something similar to the ./configure > && ./make && make install) and you should be set. > > If you application is not open source, then it is tad more complex. If > you are still allowing free redistribution, then the above still > applies, but you need to prepare something that is easy to install and > actually runs on the target distro - e.g. a statically linked file in a > tar.gz file, with all the required data. Make sure to not hardwire any > paths, because different distros put things in different places and > without source code they couldn't patch your application to integrate > well. For example, Adobe Acrobat Reader is/used to be commonly > distributed in this way. > > If you application is purely closed source and not allowing free > redistribution, then you are on your own. However, a binary either > packaged with all its dependencies or statically linked and stored in a > tar.gz file will run on any modern distribution. Targeting recent Fedora > or Ubuntu is a safe bet that will probably cover some 80% of the user > base, because those distributions are popular and many others are based > on them or using same software versions. > > Don't bother with the various window manager integration - you will > always get it wrong for someone (e.g. Mageia has different KDE/Gnome > menus than Fedora which has them yet different than SuSE ...). The users > are smart enough to make a shortcut in the menu themselves if that is > what they want and when you are working with the distro packagers > directly, they will take care of it anyway. > > There is also this, more technical article from 2005, but it applies the > same today as it did back then: > http://onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/03/31/packaging.html > > Regards, > > Jan _______________________________________________ osg-users mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org
