Installation of software

1
Installation of software

• CS 575 Spring 2006

2
Ways of installing

• Guided installation (Windows)
• Binary/Executables that help the user install the
  software
• User must specify
• Destination
• File associations
• User rights
• Installer automatically updates registry
• Con Users have to make a lot of decisions
• Pro Users have learned
• Destination -gt C\Program files\....
• File associations
• User rights
• It all works if you click NEXT, YES and OK.

3
Ways of installing

• Package managers (Linux)
• Decisions are already made
• Takes care of dependencies
• If dependencies are not present they will also be
  installed
• Example
• apt-get install java
• Looks in repositories for installation candidate
  (sources.list)
• Installs all files in necessary places
• Updates path
• Automatically sets user rights
• Pro This is a very user friendly approach
• Con
• Not all software licenses allow for distribution
  through package managers.
• Dependency hell. Some packages are dependent on
  older or newer versions of other packages.
  However this is mostly taken care of.
• Mostly used in Linux.

4
A new approach - Klik

• Klik - http//klik.atekon.de/
• A one file approach
• Bundles
• Installer files directly from authors
• Together with necessary dependencies
• Into one file
• No more file associations
• No more user rights

5
A new approach - Klik

• Requires no repositories, necessary files are
  grabbed directly from respective sites.
• Will not take up more space than conventional
  file systems since files are compressed.
• Pros
• No more dependency hell
• Easy
• Con
• Still too new, no one knows it
• Limited support yet. Linux (Suse, Ubuntu)