Re: [Gnumed-devel] Installers

[Tim Churches]

Sebastian Hilbert wrote:
> Hi Tim,
> 
> On Monday 28 March 2005 02:26, Tim Churches wrote:
> 
>>Sebastian or anyone else, have you tried the BitRock installer yet? It
>>certainly looks interesting. I am going to ask them for a free (um,
>>no-cost) license to try it with NetEpi, but I'd be very interested in
>>comparing notes if it is going to be used for GNUmed.
> 
> Did you miss a few threads ? 

Possibly. Often messages arrive from the GNUmed a day or two late, and
because I have my mail sorted by date, I tend to overlook them. Not sure
why the delay occurs.

> You can download an evaluation version without 
> asking them for a license. 
> 
> I tried it. It works. That I can say. I attached a very simple xml file for 
> GNUmed in one of my last mails.

Nope, I never got that message. Did BitRock work OK on Windows? Which
version of Windows? Having to test (or find people to test) on all those
ancient versions of Windows which are still in use is a pain.

> One will have to modify path statements 
> though. I am waiting for info on the MacOSX part.
> 
>>An alternative might be to use AutoPackage for cross-distribution Linux
>>packaging (http://bylands.dur.ac.uk/~mh/autopackage.org/), 
> 
> I know :-) Check the GNUmed wiki
> http://salaam.homeunix.com/twiki/bin/view/Gnumed/BinaryPackages
> 
> 
>>and either 
>>the Nullsoft installer (http://nsis.sourceforge.net/) or Inno Setup
>>(http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php) for Windows.
> 
> http://salaam.homeunix.com/twiki/bin/view/Gnumed/BinaryPackages
> I used that one some time ago. It works. It has evolved since.
> 
>>The advantage of the latter approach is that even the installers are
>>open source. 
> 
> Absolutely
> 
>>Disadvantages are the need to maintain separate installers 
>>for Linux and Windows, and no Apple Mac OS X support, which BitRock
>>promises.
> 
> Well MacOSX provides it own packaging mechanism which has been shown to be 
> usable.
> 
>>Difficult choice.
> 
> Actually no. :-)
> There will be packages if someone packages GNUmed. This person makes the 
> decision. Another person might disagree and package GNUmed with another 
> technology. It's about doing it not making decisions. One thing I have 
> learned about GNUmed is that you can only make decisions for yourself. You 
> can make it as easy as it gets for other people to do your work. It simply 
> won't happen :-) 

Yes, I was muttering to myself when I said "Difficult choice".

Tim C