[thelist] Is a super-slick installation necessary?

Hassan Schroeder hassan at webtuitive.com
Wed Jul 7 09:14:58 CDT 2004


Joshua Olson wrote:

> In your opinion, is a super-slick installation process necessary or even
> appreciated by hard-core system administrators?

Having done a lot of sysadmin work, I'll jump in a bit late with
a contrarian view: I hate installers.

My preference is a gzipped tar file, period; lets me see exactly
what's in the package, keep a prior copy of the same software in
place until I've tested the new one, put it exactly where I want
it, etc.

This also implies a shell/batch startup file (which will document
any dependencies) as well as an init script for *nix's /etc/init.d,
(or for Windows a manually-run install-as-service routine, when it
makes sense).

Packages with installers almost always (in my experience) screw up
existing installations, assuming *far* too much about what the user
wants to do...

YMMV!
-- 
Hassan Schroeder ----------------------------- hassan at webtuitive.com
Webtuitive Design ===  (+1) 408-938-0567   === http://webtuitive.com

                           dream.  code.




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