[CSI] Community Software Installer 2.6.1 (OLD THREAD)

[Ger Teunis]

(12-29-2008 10:04 PM)ydrol Wrote:  This partly ties into something I was hinting at earlier...
The installer is a really great idea and has really good potential, but to get the best out of it,
us 'package' developers will have to think a bit more about steps to perform for upgrades, re-installs , un-installs and rollbacks. We'll probably need a gentle nudge in the right derection,
eg the package should support at a minimum install and uninstall end it should stop the necessary services.

Some developers may not want to get too involved with this (esp if they develop a cross-platform app),
so someone else may need take on a package maintainer role. (Similar to yourself with Transmission )

With a manual install users who take the plunge are often prepared to look under the bonnet a little and get thier hands dirty, but with a gui install , if it doesnt work its more difficult for a user to know where to start.

It may mean a lot of support effort going in the wrong place. It's still a fab idea, and I hope it takes off (as it already seems to be). when I get some spare time I'll make sure my s/w works with it. Great work.

I agree about making a somesort 'template' for new software packages for the package developers to use, which MUST include an install, uninstall and eventually upgrade. It is just simply too much work for me to create the uninstalls as well.
Most of the current packages I had to change subtle things to make it more robuust or support re-install (install over the current installation) etc.

I am making the first step here. We firstly need to get heard of. If lots of people are going to use this application the 'package developers' are more likely to listen to suggestions. Anybody can suggest new stuff, but if there is no community backing, like lots of users of an install tool, the suggestion will just be lost between other suggestions and remarks. This is an ongoing project and not the end of the line at the moment. The project may grow, if the community lets, to bigger proportions and I then will need support from syabas for hosting etc. But let's take it one step at a time.

We must not get our visions clouded with some problems reported here, problems will always remain and support will always be needed. I try to take good care for the packages I release. Normally users can reinstall with no problem. The only thing really missing is an uninstall.

The number of problems are very low, because there are only a few very-specific problems reported here. To give some statistics, over a 1000 installs(!) have already been done and around 800 downloads of the installer itself.

My focus now is getting more users to use it, expand the available software (will attract more users) and then focussing on a default package form and even the locations on the HDD (currently software is scattered all over the place). But let's take it one step at a time ;-)