Distribution Independent Installers

[akhtara7]

I have a program which speeds up downloads and i want to distribute it for use on Linux machines. I was thinking of packaging it as an rpm but will the rpm work on other standard flavours of Linux apart from Redhat which comes with an rpm manager.

Are their other packagers which people would recommend and as being distribution independent.

[sarah31]

well if you want it to get to the widest possible linux crowd the most independent way to do so is to package up the source so that any user can compile it for their system. this way the packagers and maintainers of the various distros out there can package it up in the way their distro requires. you could make binaries for rpm distros and debian but it is much easier imho just to put the source out there and let someone else deal with packaging the binaries.

[akhtara7]

Thanks for replying

That probably would be the best way to do it. Though through a packager it means the user doesnt need to put a lot of effort to use my program. In particular the newbie users.

Something for me to consider - Thanks Again

[sarah31]

well you can prepackage some rpms up but there are some difference between suse, red hat and mandrake's rpm but if you stick to a common structure it should be ok. you can also package up a src.rpm to satisfy any packager or individual that may want to tweak the rpm for his/her distribution.

i recommend always just having a plain old tarballed source package too complete with some install instruction and package maintainer recommendations. it is a little bit more work but, asd mentione above, it allows those who do not use rpm package managers to install or package up your application

[akhtara7]

Yes, i've been thinking about it for a few days and have decided to tarball the source and provide instructions to the user on how to compile and run the applicationn

Thanks for you feedback it was much appreciated

Asif:D