InstaDMG (225) and iLife 08

[jdyck]

Hey all,

We’re still using iLife 08 here (for licensing, budget and cross PPC/Intel support reasons). I’ve been using InstaDMG for the last year for building images and using an iLife 08 dmg with installer choices file and everything has been working great (other than using my script at startup to properly index the GarageBand stuff). Recently I began preparing an image update, and with all the 10.5.7/8 updating issues, upgraded to the newest InstaDMG (225).

Now when I build my image, iLife does not work. I get issues in every one of the applications: iPhoto simply locks up, iMovie gives me a missing QuickTime component message, iDVD launches but does nothing, iWeb simply crashes immediately. Obviously not so great. Looking in the logs it looks like some of the Resource files aren’t getting installed into the Apps.

I just built an iLife package with Casper Composer, but I prefer using original Apple installers where possible. So, (a) is anybody else seeing these issues (or has everyone else moved to iLife 09?) and (b) if so, have you figured out a way to resolve this?

Thanks in advance.

Jeff

[larkost]

I posted recently that I was not going to answer questions that don’t include the target and the host os (along with the rev number wich you kindly included), but am going to break that. As it happens it is directly relevant:

You are probably building your 10.5 image on a 10.6 computer. Because of the changes in the installer I can’t use some of the shielding tricks that I created to handle both the iLife updaters (still not completely working), and 10.5.7+. The upshot of it is that at this point installing 10.5.6+ from 10.6.x will result in images broken much the way you describe. No fix for the forceable future (I am not sure it is something I can work around… I have some bugs in to Apple on it, but they might not consider them worth fixing).

[jdyck]

Oops, you’re right, I didn’t include that info. I’m building a 10.5.8 image from 10.5.8 (server) machine. My image builder is an Intel X-Serve running OS X server, so that may be causing issues, but it hasn’t had problems in the past.

For whatever it’s worth I’m also struggling with Office 08 now… Was using an Office 08 (12.0) dmg with an installerchoices xml file and SP1 then 12.1.9 updaters, but with updating my image I updated to a SP2 dmg file (we’re a site license) and the 12.2.1 update, but nothing shows up in the final image unfortunately. For now I’ve created a Composer custom install but again I much prefer to use original installers, even though it’s a bit slower.

Also the iTunes 9 installer has the usbmuxd issue.

I love the InstaDMG workflow for building images, but find myself getting frustrated with all these installers that are doing oddball things and taking all this extra time to get working. To be honest I’ve been thinking about going back to having a standalone machine with my master image on it. For all the issues InstaDMG solved for me, I’m finding myself spending way more time updating images than I was before – mostly because of the oddball installers, which is too bad.

[jdyck]

Hey, just reread my last post and wanted to clarify that I wasn’t really complaining about InstaDMG (although it kinda came out that way), more about the non-standard installers and companies like Apple who keep changing their Installer pkg methods in ways that break tools like InstaDMG. I greatly appreciate InstaDMG and all the work you and some others have put into it, trying to keep up to said changes. Just wish that there weren’t so many companies trying their hardest to make your task impossible ;).

Cheers

[Patrick Gallagher]

I made iLife and the updates for part of my Deploy Studio workflows. I mainly did this so I could have the option of iLife 08 and 09 without 2 images, but it also solves the problems you mention.

My typical DeployStudio workflow looks like:

set computer name
restore image
install iLife 08/09
Install iLife updates on first boot (these all reside in a single folder so I can just add new updates to a folder)
bind to OD
bind to AD

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