No automatic Linux installer

[jgranick]

There should be an installer for Linux that does not require manually unzipping archives. Especially for Neko, this will result in trouble. As a full-time Linux user, I can say that "build from the source" is not always appreciated as a recommendation for an install. We have an automatic installer for Linux here:

http://www.openfl.org/haxe-3.1.0-linux-installer.tar.gz

If you would be interested in hosting this in the Haxe.org download page, or at least linking, it would be appreciated (or if you have an alternative, that is fine as well). I noticed that the link was removed.

Thanks!

[Simn]

The link wasn't working when I clicked it. Did you fix that in the meantime?

[Simn]

Seems fine now, I've added it again. Thanks!

[ncannasse]

How is the installer built ? if we want to release on a regular basis we need to have it automated as part of our builds (cc @waneck )

[waneck]

For Linux, I intend to do the following:

• Create a ppa for easy ubuntu installation ( + neko, mod_neko and tora)
• Create the deb packages for debian, and see if I can be its maintainer on debian; Otherwise host it myself
• Do the same with raspberry pi (raspbian)

I know I've pretty much limited to debian/ubuntu, but that's what I have experience with. Hopefully people will join in and contribute with packages to other distros. I heard it's easy to convert from deb packages to other distros, but I won't be able to test them all anyway.

[tjrhodes]

a ppa would be amazing Cauè, haxe, neko, mod_neko updating via aptitude
would be perfect!

On 5 March 2014 01:20, Cauê Waneck [email protected] wrote:

For Linux, I intend to do the following:

• Create a ppa for easy ubuntu installation ( + neko, mod_neko and
  tora)
• Create the deb packages for debian, and see if I can be its
  maintainer on debian; Otherwise host it myself
• Do the same with raspberry pi (raspbian)

I know I've pretty much limited to debian/ubuntu, but that's what I have
experience with. Hopefully people will join in and contribute with packages
to other distros. I heard it's easy to convert from deb packages to other
distros, but I won't be able to test them all anyway.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/2708#issuecomment-36696377
.

[andyli]

I've just emailed Kevin, the maintainer of the haxe Ubuntu ppa. See if he will be able to update the ppa soon ;)

[waneck]

@ncannasse , as for the linked installer, it's just a shell script. Updating it should be as easy as changing the download links. However as a linux user I find that the best way to have an installer would be to actually create the packages for it.

[tjrhodes]

Hi,

Just a quick note, I tried out the shell script and it broke my neko on
Ubuntu 64 bit. Everything else seems fine, I rebuilt neko from teh git
source using the instructions here http://haxe.org/manual/haxe3 and that
works fine. Does that shell script install 32 bit neko?

On 5 March 2014 09:27, Cauê Waneck [email protected] wrote:

@ncannasse https://github.com/ncannasse , as for the linked installer,
it's just a shell script. Updating it should be as easy as changing the
download links. However as a linux user I find that the best way to have an
installer would be to actually create the packages for it.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/2708#issuecomment-36719713
.

[andyli]

FYI, Kevin has just updated his haxe Ubuntu ppa. :)

[Simn]

So how do we handle this for new releases? Haxe 3.1.1 is out, so we'll need an updated installer for it. Could we automate that too?

[ncannasse]

It just requires updating the URLs inside the script that is inside the tgz. Actually I don't see any reason for not putting directly the .sh to download, expect that users will have to chmod +x it.

[Simn]

Well, updating version numbers in x places is exactly what I wanted to avoid because it's so error-prone.

Do we want to maintain this thing, or should we leave it at openfl.org, or should we drop it, or something else?

[waneck]

I really intend to work on having proper packages. I found this http://openbuildservice.org/ which should make the process much easier. I still have to find some time to do it

[jgranick]

I think that having proper packages is good, but having a script helps handle a wider variety of systems, and allows people to see what is happening, so that they can customize it.

The reason why the version is hard-coded is because there is an "installer" file for each platform, for each version. By adapting scripts to each version, it allows you to download the installer for an older version, and if the script has to change to manage some new or varying aspect in the Haxe install, it can do so without compromising an install of a legacy Haxe release.

We tested it on Debian, Arch, Ubuntu, Fedora and OpenSUSE, to cover the primary package managers. I believe it would work elsewhere. It should install 64-bit binaries for 64-bit distributions, and recently added support for using a "y" or a "-y" argument to run through the install without a prompt.

I'm open to seeing changes in the script, or seeing it officially adopted. I think its a much better solution than A.) telling people to build from the source or B.) giving them binaries, but giving no instruction for how to install it properly. It's also much easier to maintain than a PPA. I recommend using the script, and when available, offering PPAs or packages as an alternative

[Simn]

Let's keep track of this in HaxeFoundation/haxe.org#75