Hello,


I wonder if someone is working on making a .deb package for Xoops. As I use XOOPS professionnaly on a Debian server, I would find it very usefull.
Maybe I could help, even if I'm quite new to Debian (few monthes) ?

Regards,
Jean Coiron

Being a fellow Linux user, I fail to understand the need for a binary package. It only takes four commands to download, extract, and place all the files where they need to be.

The following assumes that your html root is in the default location for Apache:


If four commands take too long, make a script called getxoops.sh. Place the following in your script and chmod the file to 755.

Then just copy the script into the desired target directory and execute it with


Hope this helps*/

Actually I was thinking of dependancies : if you don't have PHP5 you can choose to install the last PHP4 version of Xoops' .deb, for instance.
I reckon It would be a good thing to include XOOPS in the Debian project like phpMyAdmin and phpgroupware are.

Actually someone's already working on it, and the package is avaliable at http://www.vmxt.com/debian/ for testing purpose.

Regards,
Jean Coiron

Quote:

Well, you might be a fellow Linux user, but you do not seem very well versed in the why and hows of package management. If you admin a linux box that uses package management you try to avoid installing any system software from a tarball at all costs. Most (if not all software) gets developed upon, adding features and fixing bugs and security leaks. The extra features you can do without, but the bug fixes and especially the security fixes are something you should wish to monitor all the time.
A typical Linux distro has over a thousand packages installed, so it would be totally impossible to keep track of all of them acurately. That is one reason why those tasks are centralized in the package management/repository.
If some nasty stuff is discovered in a package, all I have to do is run apt-get update && apt-get upgrade. This will make sure I get the latest available software installed without further action needed from me. Also when I install from scratch All I have to do is answer some questions and be done with it. No need to make sure I have a database available etc. Somebody still has to make the package, that is true, but the total amount of work spend on upgrading by all users is far less compared to everybody doing their upgrades manually.
A second reason to use package management is to keep track of all installed files an be able to unstall some particular software later on. you will not be able to do that if you install from tarballs, you will quickly loose track. Lastly package management is nothing new, most (if not all) distro's use it. It is only new for you if you come a envirnoment where there is no system-wide package manager, like windows. You can compare apt-get and yum on linux with windows-update, but with the exception that all sofware is installed and updated with it, not only the MS-squeeky-wheels.

And offcourse I too support a call for a debian/rpm package. It appears the package mentioned above has not been touoch in a year.

I use Mepis (a Debian-based Linux distro) on my home computer, and can see the benefit of a Debian XOOPS package.

The only obstacle I see is that someone has to get the package set up initially, and then someone has to keep it updated. There's a shortage of personnel available to do such tasks.

Personally I wouldn't use it, since I run XOOPS on Mepis, Redhat, Fedora, Win2k and WinXP platforms. I like being able to use the same .tar.gz distribution package on all of those platforms.

Sometimes you do what is neccesary, so I started building Erick Castellanos package and tried to upgrade it to 2.2.3afinal. It is not finished yet(see other post about that) I still need some hint what to do in the case of an upgrade. (and it does not install a working version too...).

I don't know enough about Debian package management to fully answer your upgrade question.

But apt-get/kpackage/synaptic seem to have the capability to run an upgrade script, which can prompt the user for choices, or display instructions for things that the user has to do manually.

Is that what you meant?

Yes and no,
It is what I meant, but what does the script have to do specifically in case of an upgrade? for a new install I have it create a bd and dbuser, load the sql structure and initial content and then ask for and save the XOOPS admin.
but what in case of an upgrade? create a db backup before proceeding? and then what & how?

Just to follow this one up: Here is the debian package I made based on Eric's previous package for 2.0.x
http://nietsch.demon.nl/~jib/xoops-2.2.3afinal/xoops_2.2.3aFinal_all.deb

I'm on a puny dsl so please do not pound it please.

I will not release any more packages as I have bee terribly unimpressed with how things start off after an install. The only upside I can think of after spending this much time on packaging it is that I hve learnt some more on how to make a debian package. The XOOPS part was mostly wasted.

So long....