Software installation opinions needed

[Bill Vermillion]

In article <EMERY.90Sep19131715 at aries.linus.mitre.org> emery at linus.mitre.org (David Emery) writes:
>Here's another do/don't do:

>     So, what I think should happen is that the installation script
>should look something like the following (intented lines result from
>answering 'n'):
>	Install executable into /usr/bin (y/n)? 
>		Enter the path for the executable: 
>	Install library into /usr/lib (y/n)?
>		Enter the path for the library:
>	Perform installation now (y/n)?
>		OK, not performing installation.  Writing
>		installation commands to the file "./install.me".
>		You may need to be the superuser to execute "./install.me".

And I just installed a package today that did the above (except building an
install file).

And then it proceeded to install itself, with a note on the screen that it
may take from 1 to 20 minutes to install, depending on the machine.

This STOOOOPID! program think's it knows how to handle terminals better
than termcap or terminfo.  So it built IT'S OWN TERMINFO library in it's
own /usr/lib/(application name with-help to protect the guilty) directory.

All umpteen blue jillion terminals that are in the standard terminfo are
compiled, with NO OPTION to withhold compiling, or compile only
selectively.  Now I have to go and remove all but the 3 terminal types we
standardized on because the program want to give me all it's know terminals
and variations which now amounts to several hundred files.

So if a package needs it's own special terminal database, give us an option
to only choose what we need.  A better way would be to write the program to
use the system terminal files - but that's wishful thinking.

On the machines at this particular site the word processor, the spread
sheet, and the data base all use their OWN terminal files. Yech!


-- 
Bill Vermillion - UUCP: uunet!tarpit!bilver!bill
                      : bill at bilver.UUCP