Re: [Opencd-devel] regarding installation method

[J A. F. <jaa...@ya...>]

Sorry about that last post.  I just changed email clients and I'm still getting
used to the set up.

About java:

--- Alex Roston <tun...@pa...> wrote:
> Buchan Milne wrote:
> 
> > Brendon Crawford wrote:
> > | 3) We could create a JAVA/swing based installation.
> > | This could be very convenienet seeing that it would be
> > | cross platform. This idea is my personal favorite,
> > | seing that it would be the most flexible.
> > |
> > Can the JRE be run from a CD? Or would it need to be installed first?
> 
> We could certainly put it in C:\temp.
> 
> Alex
> 

The java.exe can be run from the CD directly without installing it.  I just
confirmed that a second ago.

Despite the fact that I am a java developer and supporter, I feel we should NOT
use java for our installation language.  Java, both the language and the
virtual machine are NOT open source.  While there is Kaffe, it's only java 1.1
compliant, and that limits us a lot.  If we do create any sort of installer,
then it should be written in an open source language.  My feeling is that
everything that goes into this CD should be open source, including the tools by
which it is developed and delivered if at all possible.

And one last word about a unified installer.  While having one single installer
is nice, it has several draw backs.  First, we're duplicating effort.  Also,
the installer will have to be regularly updated for each new release of the
software we provide on the CD.  An HTML based installer would be much simplier.
 Plus, then when the user decides to update Mozilla or whatever, they would
already familiar be with the software's native installer.  Finally, I feel that
by providing an HTML front end we can easily provide links to documentation and
resources found on the CD, plus links to our websites and other projects. 
Localization will also be easier and creating an single unified look and feel
for both installer and website can be easily done by using the same
stylesheets.

At least that's my $0.02

jaaron

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