Re: GSoC project about binary packaging

[Patrick Noffke]

On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 11:51 AM, John W. Eaton <address@hidden> wrote:
> On 07/09/2013 12:37 PM, Michael Goffioul wrote:
>
>> AFAIK, yes. There is nothing wrong with NSIS, but Patrick raised the
>> concern that NSIS generates executable installers, while WiX generates
>> MSI file; and that MSI files might be the only type of installer allowed
>> in corporate locked-down environment.
>
>
> OK.  I'm not personally worried about this at the moment, but I can
> see that it could be a problem in the future if more people move away
> from self-contained executable installers.
>

I still don't have a good explanation of the technical basis for why
MSI files are preferred.  Is it because they can run msiexec /qn from
install scripts and turn off the UI?  Is it possible with NSIS to
install in a silent mode?  There were some indications that MSIs were
preferred in an Active Directory environment, but again, I'm not sure
why.

>
>> Personally, I'm fine with both (though I don't know WiX), except if WiX
>> requires to install Platform SDK in order to have customized UI in the
>> installer.
>

WiX doesn't require the Platform SDK.  I was just trying to see if I
could find the ready-made UI elements there (which WiX provides).
These elements are pre-packaged dialogs for doing things like
calculating available disk space, showing a license agreement, letting
the user choose the install path, etc.  It would be possible to write
all this ourselves (to run on Linux -- see below), but I'd rather not
reinvent this wheel.

>
> Looking at http://wixtoolset.org and and in particular
> http://wixtoolset.org/releases/v4-0-701-0 does not give me a warm
> happy free software feeling.  The software is distributed as a .exe
> file, so I guess it runs only on Windows systems?

Yes, WiX runs only on Windows.  It is written in C#, and the license
is the "Microsoft Reciprocal License."
http://wixtoolset.org/about/license/

>  And there is this
> note:
>
>   WiX v4.0 source code for debugging purposes. Note: this source code
>   will not build.
>
> ??

AFAIK, 3.7 is the current release.

>
> For me, it is important that we are able to build the installer
> package in a cross environment.  And preferably without having to use
> Wine or run any kind of interactive tool.  I don't know if that is
> how WiX works, but it is important to me to be able to generate the
> installer from a script or Makefile rules without any user interaction
> other than starting the build process.
>

To create installers on Linux (native -- without Wine), the msitools
package [1] can be used.  I was able to create a MSI file that has no
real UI, and it installs fine on XP or Win7.  However, as I posted
yesterday, the pre-packaged UI elements included with WiX are not
supported in msitools.  So to make an installer with a "typical" look
and feel, we'd either have to write our own dialogs or find a way to
get at the ones used in WiX (and make sure the licenses allow for
reuse).

[1] https://wiki.gnome.org/msitools

Patrick