[clue-talk] Any linux package specialists out there?

[Greg Knaddison]

On 5/10/07, David Rudder <david.rudder at reliableresponse.net> wrote:
> I've had a good idea for a side business.  My company, Reliable
> Response, makes a package that runs on linux.  I don't have the time to
> test on every distribution and make all the different packages.  If
> someone out there offers a service to build and package software
> releases for the top 10 linux distributions, it would probably sell
> pretty well.

Install Anywhere does basically that.

http://www.macrovision.com/products/installshield/installanywhere/index.shtml

I don't think it handles the "top 10" but last time I used it you
could get RPM and a few others out of it (Solaris, HPUX, Windows).  It
probably has more now.  If not, at least people can use alien or
something like that to get the RPM.

It requires you to do lots of pointing and clicking or to learn their
custom XML and APIs.  It's written in Java though, so your company
will probably embrace that aspect of it.

I used it for a little while to package some Java server applications
and some client tools. It's great for "are you using postgres or
mysql?  -> branch and present configuration screens dependant on the
answer and then set settings into a conf file and take other actions
based upon their answer..."

I liked it tons more than InstallShield (no surprise).

I'm interested in the other ideas folks have on this topic.
Greg