[ Thanks to Michael J. Hammel for this
link. ]
“So you’re a software developer with a product to deliver and
you’re wondering how to package it. The format you deliver your
software (either via download or on CD) will have a big impact on
it’s success. End users, rightfully or not, judge a package heavily
on it’s ease of installation. For traditional Linux users it’s
never been a big problem – gzipped tar files of the source code are
the norm. Everyone knows how to build source, right?”
“Wrong. Welcome to the new Linux revolution. Now we’re
talking about two new kinds of users: those who don’t know or care
about how to build software and those who know but don’t want to
waste time dealing with building it. In both cases, you need
to provide binary distributions that they can have up and running
lickety split. You need end-user oriented automated installation
tools….”
“Enter setup, the simply named front end installation tool from
Loki. Loki, the company best know for it’s port of major games to
Linux, developed setup as a way to simplify installation of their
products for end users. Setup is not a replacement for RPM – it’s a
more user friendly front end that is generic enough to not care
what format the installation files are in. This means that you can
use the ubiquitous RPM files if you choose, or you can revert back
to the old gzipped tar files. Setup doesn’t care what you use. And
that makes it useful to any developer.”