Re: LibO Install/Update ( was [tdf-discuss] Automatic Updates)

 On 09/10/10 10:48 PM, todd rme wrote:
> There is another, somewhat independent issue that has occurred to me.
> What about how the components are split up?  The issues are somewhat
> different for windows and mac than they are for linux.
>
> For windows and mac, if someone, for instance, only wants a database
> program, should they have to download the entire program suite just to
> install that one program?  There are a couple possible solutions to
> this (in addition to the status quo).  One is that we supply the
> current all-inclusive installer, as well as a separate installers for
> the individual parts.
>
> An alternative is that we provide an online installer, where you
> download a small program, tell it what you want to install, and it
> retrieves those bits and installs them.  This also has the advantage
> that the actual download the user has to worry about deleting later is
> very small, the rest of the downloads would be stored in a temporary
> directory that would be automatically deleted later.
>
> It occurred to me that this is, in essence, what the updater would do.
>   So really you would only need one program, the updater, which would
> also be able to handle the original installation.  You could just
> download the updater and have it retrieve the latest versions of
> whatever parts of the program you want from the servers.  This also
> makes it easier for users who, say, install writer and find they like
> it to easily install other components right from within the program.
>
> For Linux, the issue is how the parts of the suite are divided up and
> named.  Different distributions use lots of different ways to break up
> the suite into individual packages and lots of different names for
> those packages.  It is not possible to force distributions to use any
> particular naming scheme, but I think that providing recommendations
> and guidelines for how the packages should be divided up would be very
> helpful.  Users would have a better idea what they need to install to
> get the features they want, tech support will be easier because people
> using different distributions can communicate more effectively about
> what they have installed, and switching between different versions of
> the software provided by different groups would be easier.  Of course
> the content of these guidelines would require a lot of discussion with
> distributions, but I would like to think distributions would be
> willing to follow such guidelines if they are reasonable.
>
> -Todd
Todd,

Nice thought.
As soon as I read your post I was smacking my forehead as this makes 
quite a bit of sense to me.

As I understand the current install from a strictly "Debian/Apt" 
perspective, what you describe exists in some form. LibO has a common or 
core package, individual packages for the different major LibO 
components and (I'm assuming here) the LibO Basis. If you have a look at 
Nicola's deb work ( http://download.tuxfamily.org/gericom/libreoffice/ ) 
you can get a better idea of how LibO's components are packaged for 
Debian/Ubuntu/Mint etc users.

The devs would have to comment further about technical feasibility, but 
from this user's point of view I like the idea.

Regards,
Scott Furry

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