install.sh

[Peter Bonivart]

David Lee wrote:
> Myself, I used to be a hardened "configure/make/test/install" advocate.
> But I'm coming round to the view (each case on its merits, of course) of
> recognising the value of an "install.sh".  And in the case of MS, my RH
> ("install.sh") vs. Solaris ("configure/make/test/install") experience is
> now heavily in favour of the "install.sh" option (for us, at our site).

While I agree with what you say and use both Solaris and Linux at work
and at home, for MailScanner and other purposes, I want to make two points:

1. While I work on the upgrade, even though it takes 30 minutes instead
of 5, my server is in full production until I'm sure everything is
correct and I move the symlink. Not so with the Linux way which leads me
to...

2. If something goes wrong at any point I can back out in 5 seconds by
symlinking back to the old dist which is fully configured as I left it.

Those two points have a lot of value to me. But I don't want to start a
discussion around this, what I wanted to ask you and Julian is if
there's going to be a portable install.sh for all distributions or one
separate for the tar distribution? Also, will it come with Solaris
packages? You posted recently about sending Julian a portable install.sh
working on Solaris and Julian has been asking about Solaris packages
some weeks ago and I, among others, offered to help out.

I understand the last month has been h--l for us all but I just wanted
to know if it's something that is being/will be worked on further. I'm
so interested in this that I will do something Solaris specific
(complete with SA and Clam) soon but since Julians first release would
probably embarrass my efforts I just want to hear from him before I
start. :-)

--
/Peter Bonivart

--Unix lovers do it in the Sun

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