[Merkaartor] Auto-updating merkaartoLinux/OSX sysadmin input requested

Chris Browet cbro at semperpax.com
Tue Sep 28 16:40:03 BST 2010


On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 23:49, Dirk Stöcker <openstreetmap at dstoecker.de>wrote:

> On Mon, 27 Sep 2010, Chris Browet wrote:
>
>  While doing this in Windows (where all files related to an application
>> reside in the same directory) seems pretty obvious, I have no clue on how
>> this is done in Linux/OSX, where the sys folders are supposed to be
>> read-only for a plain user and where package management more or less imposes
>> a "static" file system.
>>
>
> For Linux usually the best strategy is to use the package managers for
> installation and update.
>
> Problem is the packaging path of the linux distro scales well for large,
well-managed project like apache, but not for fast-evolving, small
"amateurish" project like Merkaartor.

If I take Ubuntu, a "lambda" user is stuck with the same Merkaartor version
for 6 months. Its only way to get updated versions is to do modifications to
its config to add additional repositories, and then it still depends if the
Ubuntu merkaartor package manager keeps up (If it is Bernd, I'm sure it is,
but I don't think he handles Ubuntu day-to-day).
And it is far worse for lesser-known distro.

I guess an hybrid solution would work, if merkaartor is split into multiple
components using the Qt plugin system:
- Have releases as it is now
- Make merkaartor checks for updated components online, download them in the
homedir, and make merkaartor use those ones instead of the packaged ones if
their versions is greater.

That would work for both Windows and Linux. Now it has to be checked vs. OSX
update framework...

- Chris -
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