Multiplatform deployment. Was: Re: VS: [vw7.9]Platforms supporting cairo and pango

We started off trying to be good and distribute our application for Linux in RPM packages, but have since changed to a simple .tar.gz. Different Linux distros have different native package formats, and each has a significant learning curve and maintenance overhead. The provides/requires facilities of RPM were insufficient for even our simple needs - in the end it seemed like a lot of work for no real gain. We also found that Linux users have the strongest opinions about where applications should install themselves, and those opinions varied from user to user. A .tar.gz file and shell scripts were things the advanced users seemed happy to play with, and the normal users were able to follow simple installation instructions.

 

Our Mac version is a DMG package, from which the user just drags our application folder to his Applications folder. On Windows we use InstallShield Express. In our upcoming version we're adding Cairo, and the Mac and Windows versions will install the library Cincom provides. On Linux my understanding is that the Cairo libraries are common in current distros, but since our app was built pre-Cairo we have our old non-Cairo graphics code as an automatic fallback (and selectable as an explicit user option).

 

It will be interesting to see how this all turns out, but so far Cairo has been rock solid for us in our beta on Windows (7.7.1 on XP, Vista and 7).

 

All the best,

Steve

 

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Lähettäjä: [hidden email] puolesta: Rob Vens
Lähetetty: su 08/04/2012 00:43
Vastaanottaja: Randy Coulman
Kopio: [hidden email]
Aihe: Re: [vw7.9]Platforms supporting cairo and pango

I am distributing the applications for the *nix platforms in gz files,
so not really in packages with dependencies. Maybe I should do that, it
sounds like that is easier to manage dependencies. I create installers
for Windows and Macintosh though, those platforms are more familiar for
me.
I'll look into packages.

Op Sat Apr  7 21:36:31 2012, Randy Coulman schreef:

> I'm not sure I have a good answer for that, as it depends on how you
> distribute your application.
>
> For example, we build factory automation equipment, so we completely
> control the computer that runs our application.  We're using Debian
> Linux, so we put all of our stuff into Debian packages and then just
> set the package dependencies accordingly so that the Cairo and Pango
> libraries get pulled in that way via our automated build and
> installation processes.
>
> If you have your own installer, and you have to support multiple
> versions of Linux, etc, etc, the problem becomes more difficult, and I
> haven't done much in that space, so I don't know what would work best
> there.
>
> Randy
>
> On Sat, Apr 7, 2012 at 8:29 AM, Rob Vens <[hidden email]
> <[hidden email]>> wrote:
>
>     ah, thanks, Randy. They "are typically there" sounds a little
>     problematic to me, because I want to make sure my users have those
>     libraries there, and I have not yet looked into what is needed for my
>     application to check for that.
>     Any ideas on a simple way to check for those libraries from within VW
>     and how to direct a user to installing them if necessary?
>
>     Op Sat Apr  7 17:18:23 2012, Randy Coulman schreef:
>     > We use them on Linux all the time. The libraries are not
>     distributed with VW on that platform because they are typically
>     already there, or really easy to install.
>     >
>     > Randy
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     > On Apr 7, 2012, at 5:29 AM, Rob Vens <[hidden email]
>     <[hidden email]>> wrote:
>     >
>     >>
>     >> Am I correct in understanding that only Windows 32-bit,  and
>     Mac OS X
>     >> (currently no 64 bit support at all) support Cairo and Pango?
>     Because
>     >> the required libraries are only installed in those binary
>     directories.

On 08.04.2012 10:14, Rob Vens wrote:

Cc to the general mailing list where this subject is probable better placed.
Thanks Steven, your .tar.gz strategy is what I do for *nix as well, also
the installer for Windows (I use the regular VisualStudio Setup project)
and the .dmg for the Mac.
I am in the process of writing an article on this subject, sharing my
current strategy and hopefully improving it with suggestions from the
community:

http://robvens.com/en/blog/ict/smalltalk/item/deploy-visualworks-on-windows

don't know if it fits in here or is completely off-topic:
you might want to automate building / deploying /testing images with Jenkins CI, to let the machine do all the laborious work for you.

I've published some pieces of code in the public repository, documentation is here:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/21555916/documentation/jenkins.html