Application packages list

[dagger2b]

Hi I am new to trying to create packages for all of my installation needs. I was wondering if anyone wants to share their experiences in creating packages from installers and what tricks have to be performed.

I haven’t gotten too far myself. Everytime I try to package Office 2004 the computer crashes. I am trying to use Composer to create an Acrobat Reader package now.

Any tips and tricks would be appreciated.

[pteeter]

My preference is logGen -> pkgGen -> PackageMaker.

I find that I prefer Xcode 2’s PackageMaker as opposed to the latest greatest, though I’m building for Tiger primarily now.

I also, at times, use Composer and InstallEase by LanRev.

At this point I’ve built numerous packages from various types of installers, I have *never* seen a machine crash.

What kind of hardware are you using for building your packages?
How clean/vanilla is your OS install?

[Dee]

Are you working on Leopard?
Seems PackageMaker has some issues on that…
I got the same issue trying to build the CS3 package on Leopard. Composer uses the PackageMaker “engine” to build the package.No problem using Tiger.

Dee

[dano]

A couple of things regarding the logGen to pkgGen to PackageMaker workflow:

1. logGen doesn’t scan user’s home directory. This isn’t a major issue unless you would like to see what user settings are generated or modified.
2. pkgGen has problems with symlinks and will generate an error upon encountering a symlink.
3. Leopard’s Developer Tools appear to be rather buggy. I haven’t been able to generate packages for Office 2008 or Adobe CS3 using Leopard’s Developer Tools while Tiger’s Developer Tools work just fine.

FYI: I’m not familiar with Composer but am growing fond of an application called LANrev InstallEase. If you’re not as comfortable using the command line then this is a good GUI based method of generating pakcages. You still need Developer Tools installed to build your package installers. The company that publishes LANrev was (may still be) offering InstallEase as a free download. It has been offered as commercial software in the past.

[dagger2b]

Thanks for the replies. Yes I was using Leopard and Xcode 3. I ended up leaving a package to build (Acro Reader 8) over the weekend and it finally built. After that I tried Office 04 on the same computer and it built with no problems. So now it seems to be working (I am just afraid to restart that computer now!)

Along the same package magic lines, how are you folks creating your first start scripts? I have been trying to create a LaunchDaemon that does something then deletes itself by doing something like

[code]/scripts/byHostfix.sh | rm /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.blah.byHostfix.plist[/code]

which I thought would work but doesn’t. How are you guys doing it. I would rather not leave the sript on the HD after it has done it’s job.

[Author]

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