<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type"> </head> <body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"> Eli Barzilay wrote: <blockquote cite="mid:18384.11739.948997.327137@arabic.ccs.neu.edu" type="cite"> <pre wrap=""> I wanted to do that, but never got any help in producing a .deb file. Actually, I'm more familiar with RPMs, but not enough to make one. The main problem is that the result of our build process is a fully compiled tree, and that needs to turn to the final installer package. A proper RPM package (and .deb, AFAICT) should start with the source instead, and that means that the build process is different -- so what I was considering is a simple (ab)use of the package as a container for the files that can unpack them and track them as usual. I eventually just went with a portable installer facility that works on all unix-like machines.</pre> </blockquote> I'll see what I can find. <blockquote cite="mid:18384.11739.948997.327137@arabic.ccs.neu.edu" type="cite"> <pre wrap="">OS's such as Ubuntu use these packages and the number of people using them is growing every day. </pre> </blockquote> <blockquote cite="mid:18384.11739.948997.327137@arabic.ccs.neu.edu" type="cite"> <pre wrap=""> But there is also a clear shift from downloading random packages from the web to relying on the central repository of your distribution. </pre> </blockquote> This is very true.  However, there are certain things people will go to another site to get, namely the latest versions.  Ubuntu currently puts out a stable release every 6 months and only updates the packages in the repos at that interval, so if a brand new version of DrScheme came out with spiffy new features or fixes 2 weeks after the ubuntu release, I for one would be very sad.  (which probably means I should learn how to build *.deb packages eh?) <blockquote cite="mid:18384.11739.948997.327137@arabic.ccs.neu.edu" type="cite"> <pre wrap=""></pre> <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap="">Ubuntu 7.10 has a DrScheme package available in the ubuntu repositories, but it is version 360. The new release of ubuntu coming out in April has the 372 package available, which is good, because for some reason the self-installing script for ubuntu isn't working for me and I'd like to use 372. </pre> </blockquote> <pre wrap=""> How did it broke? </pre> </blockquote> As I recall, the script completed successfully as far as it was concerned, but when I tried to start DrScheme it complained of missing files or some such.  This was when I first switched to Ubuntu.  I'll try it again today and let you know what happens.  However, one of the main reasons I love the *.deb package route is the single command install and uninstall.  The uninstall being very important to me, if I don't like something, I want to uninstall it and have it, and every trace it was there, gone.  A well-made *.deb package does this. </body> </html>