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Excluding package managers, what are some good installation tools for creating software installation programs on Linux? (for example, AutoPackage)

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Vote to close... ? – George Edison Apr 14 '10 at 18:43
I think this probably belongs on superuser.com since it's more about computing in general rather than programming. – Zach Johnson Apr 14 '10 at 19:03
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migrated from stackoverflow.com Apr 14 '10 at 19:10

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Main tools for creating installation packages for Linux are RPM and DPKG.

Beside this there are some tools like Autopackage and BitRock Installer.

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First, several questions:

  1. Are you distributing source code, or a pre-built binary?
  2. Are there any install-time configuration options that you need to present to users?
  3. Are you looking for something like Nullsoft NSIS, but for Linux?

While you're thinking about that...

The standard build/install tool for open source software is GNU Autoconf. By using this when you distribute your source code, users get a standard way to install your software: ./configure && make && make install.

The other popular way to do this is just write a Bash script yourself that copies files into the right location. This would work better for binary packages.

Once you have either of these working, you could use RPM or DPKG to make a package, if you felt like making life easy on your users. Really, this is the best way to make your software available to Linux. Is there a particular reason you want to avoid this?

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