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How to build an installer

New Message How to build an installer (modified 0 times) davinci27

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Sketchy and I are still working on the installer system, but in the mean time, I thought people might wonder how I'm building my installers. Here's the basic idea
I create a directory that contains all of the files neccessary for the application to run.
I then create an install script in this directory. This install script does whatever is neccessary to install the application. Creates links, moves files, compress files, edits boot.sh, etc.
Next I tar that directory, then gzip that directory
Now I use cat to combine a preprocessor script and that tar into one file. The preprocessor script strips off the last so many bytes (However many your tar.gz is) creates and new tar.gz in the /tmp directory and executes the install script.
Here's and example of the preprocessor scritpt:
#!/bin/sh
echo "Removing File"
tail -c -n 3942 $0 > /tmp/install.tar.gz
cd /tmp
echo "Extracting Archive"
gzip -df /tmp/install.tar.gz
tar -xf /tmp/install.tar
cd /tmp/install
echo "Executing Install Script"
sh /tmp/install/install

The one problem is that this process requires tail. Thanks go to Skethcy who wrote an app that will install tail, gzip, and which. We're working on a way to incorporate this into on application, but for now you have to download setup before you can run any of my installers. What I'd like to do is begin adding uninstall scripts that would get stored in a common directory. Then users could browse that directory and remove naything they had installed.
davinci27

04-16-2002 07:30:29

New Message RE:How to build an installer (modified 0 times) Sketchy

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Many thanks to davinci for taking charge of making this package installer for Audrey hacks.
As davinci mentioned in his post, you need to run "setup" first, before you can get any of the package install scripts to work. For anyone curious or paranoid about exactly what setup does, I'll explain it.
The setup program itself is very small, but it contains within itself a 60k tar file that includes 3 tools: which, tail, and gzip, all of which are needed for the install scripts to do their job. When setup launches, it unpacks those tools into the Audrey's /nto/bin directory (if needed, and if the user agrees to it). The bin directory can be changed on the command line (setup -h for help).
To summarize, running setup self-extracts the tools needed for the installer scripts, and prevents the need to download and install several different tools into specific directories. This system and the setup program will probably change over time as davinci and I move forward with the packager.
Questions about the package installer in general should go to davinci, but questions specifically about the setup program should go to me at acidtest@timemocksme.com
-- Jim
ACID and other Audrey apps

04-16-2002 09:37:35

New Message Many thanks, a history review, and my two cents worth... (modified 0 times) keith721

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$0.02 worth at the end, no soapbox
it's really great to see davinci27, sketchy, jayklm (welcome back!!) and everybody else pulling things together with the Audrey like this. thanks to everyone!! if sowbug, scythic, suicidal, and deviant still read here, i'm sure they're pleased to see the results of everyones' efforts.
sowbug applied a tremendous amount of effort to hack poor little Audrey to put shellex, pterm, and ftp on it, which opened the doors for everyone else. scythic figured out how to clone and spoof the Marimba servers before 3Com yanked them down, then madmax and other generous folks supplied DNS and Marimba servers, too. this enabled almost anyone with an Audrey and internet access to upgrade from the 3Com factory software to the latest version (including sowbug's hacks) long after 3Com shut down their servers and support.
suicidal finally proved that it's possible to 'cat' the Audrey/QNX filesystems fs0p0, fs0p1, and fs0p2 to the /dev/cf device to create a fully functional Compact Flash backup, and even to flash clone other Audrey's using the compact flash. keith_d gave us an onscreen/touchpad keyboard, the first 'new' QNX/Photon app for the Audrey, and people like koreth, sketchy, and others continued developing and contributing other useful QNX/Photon applications. rseidl and others began digging into the Audrey web server and the sendmessage executable, and writing home automation scripts that turned Audrey into a low-cost web-based full-color touch screen controller.
jayklm had the confidence to post what i believe was the first 'home-grown' Audrey image publicly on the web. amazingly, nobody sent him a cease-and-desist letter since then, everyone's learned an amazing amount of information about Audrey, Geode, and QNX; more than anyone could possibly have imagined just over a year ago.
keep digging, keep learning, but most importantly keep sharing... thanks.
keith721

04-16-2002 11:09:39

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