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Mailing lists / fpc-pascal / 2010-01

Re: creating a standalone executable (eg: applicationinstallation file)

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Paul Nicholls

----- Original Message -----
From: "Graeme Geldenhuys"

Newsgroups: gmane.comp.compilers.free-pascal.general To: "FPC-Pascal users discussions"

Sent: Tuesday, January 12, 2010 11:37 PM
Subject: creating a standalone executable (eg: applicationinstallation file)

Show quoted text 46 lines
Hi, I have seen a few Linux application that have standalone executables that are installation programs. Once run, it installs the application in the appropriate directory location, can run as root or normal user and creates a desktop and Application menu icon. Similar to Windows's setup.exe idea. An example of such a Linux application is 'installpixel32' from the Pixel32 project, or Kylix 3 installation. * How does one create such a standalone application? * How do you include the application executable and other resources (text, image, sound files etc) inside such an installation executable? I'm trying to create (mainly for our company, but probably open-source in the end) such a standalone setup creation for our projects. This way it will be Linux distro independent. I also don't want to go the route of projects like AutoPackage that first requires a setup runtime to be installed. I want a installation file like what Pixel32 did. One installation executable without any installation runtime etc. and after the installation, I can simply click on 'uninstall' or run 'setup -u' and a graphical uninstaller is launched. I'm going to look at Loki Games's setup program to see if I can port it to fpGUI Toolkit, or at least get some ideas of how to create such a setup application. Basically I'm trying to create a "InstallShield Lite" but for Linux. :-) The nice thing of Loki Games is that it run run as a console installation or a GUI installation - again, no idea how they managed that, but it was possible (Kylix 3 installation did that). Anybody have pointers or internet links I can read up on the subject? -- Regards, - Graeme - _______________________________________________ fpGUI - a cross-platform Free Pascal GUI toolkit http://opensoft.homeip.net/fpgui/ _______________________________________________ fpc-pascal maillist - http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal

Hi Graeme,
perhaps this link might help - it shows you how to create a linux script with appended zip'd data, and then make it executable so it can be run as a normal program :)

http://www.franzone.com/2008/08/14/how-to-create-a-bash-install-script/

cheers,
Paul

Graeme Geldenhuys
to Paul Nicholls
Paul Nicholls wrote
http://www.franzone.com/2008/08/14/how-to-create-a-bash-install-script/

Thanks Paul. I guess the author of that website didn't know about Makeself, which automates the exact same procedure he does manually.

Either way, that seems to be the popular way of distributing applications in a distro independent manner.

The installer I'm working on will probably start as a script, unpack itself and then figure out if it should run the Console setup or the GUI setup - depending if X11 is available and running. This will also allow me to pick the correct setup for the architecture (32bit or 64bit install, *BSD or Linux binary etc).

So far my GUI setup is looking pretty neat and is completely configurable at runtime using a setup.xml file. Later I'll create a "install builder" which will generate that setup.xml file for the user/developer.

Regards,
- Graeme -

fpGUI Toolkit - a cross-platform GUI toolkit using Free Pascal http://opensoft.homeip.net/fpgui/
Paul Nicholls
to Graeme Geldenhuys

----- Original Message -----

Earlier message 41 lines
From: "Graeme Geldenhuys" To: "FPC-Pascal users discussions" Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2010 6:36 PM Subject: Re: [fpc-pascal] Re: creating a standalone executable(eg: applicationinstallation file) > Paul Nicholls wrote: >> >> http://www.franzone.com/2008/08/14/how-to-create-a-bash-install-script/ > > Thanks Paul. I guess the author of that website didn't know about > Makeself, > which automates the exact same procedure he does manually. > > Either way, that seems to be the popular way of distributing applications > in a distro independent manner. > > The installer I'm working on will probably start as a script, unpack > itself > and then figure out if it should run the Console setup or the GUI setup - > depending if X11 is available and running. This will also allow me to pick > the correct setup for the architecture (32bit or 64bit install, *BSD or > Linux binary etc). > > So far my GUI setup is looking pretty neat and is completely configurable > at runtime using a setup.xml file. Later I'll create a "install builder" > which will generate that setup.xml file for the user/developer. > > Regards, > - Graeme - Nice! I would be interested in this myself as I want to start Linux (Ubuntu) programming with freepascal/Lazarus, and some sort of install system would be great :) I'm trying to get a game I've made working under Linux now (Is currently Win32 ATM). cheers, Paul