October 2006 - Installer-dev

Re[3]: Installer chewing up CPU time on 10.3 while running postinstall
by Peter Bierman 15 Oct '06

15 Oct '06

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com Why on earth, have Apple not pushed out Installer updates to 10.3 users? Distribution scripts and such would make our lives a hell of a lot easier! -pmb _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Installer-dev mailing list (Installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/installer-dev/site_archiver%40lists.… At 11:22 PM +0100 10/14/06, Peter Mulholland wrote: We have found that our customers are best served by focusing our energy on continuous improvement instead of establishing a functional baseline. For example, it's probable that we'd never have created distribution scripts if we had instead been porting 10.3 functionality back to 10.2. This is obviously frustrating to some developers and users. It's frustrating to me too that we can't please everyone, because I really like our users and developers. :-) But someday 10.4 will be the acceptable baseline. And someday 10.5, etc... So with every release we raise the bar so when that someday comes, developers will have the installer features they need for their products. I don't have the authority to release an exact breakdown of what percentages of our customers are running 10.4 vs 10.3, etc, but it's much more dramatic than most people would estimate. You might want to evaluate whether supporting your product on 10.3 is actually necessary. For example, the Omni Group publishes these statistics gathered from their users: http://update.omnigroup.com/ This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Re[5]: Installer chewing up CPU time on 10.3 while running postinstall
by Peter Mulholland 15 Oct '06

15 Oct '06

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com Hello Stéphane, Sunday, October 15, 2006, 6:22:07 PM, you wrote: > - pushing out Installer.app update would require pushing out > Installation.framework update. I don't see the problem here - aren't Frameworks designed to support more than one version concurrently? > - it may also require updating the BOM framework. See above. > - it may also require updating the Cocoa frameworks or rewrite some > methods Hm, fair point... but I don't see that being likely. > - it may require trusting the Javascript engine on 10.3 to be the same > as the 10.4's one I would expect it to be the latest one on ALL OS's - Microsoft manage this (or rather, Sun do) > - QA cost and lack of resources. Unacceptable excuse, IMO. What about *OUR* QA costs from having to mess about and then finally decide to write an inhouse install tool? > - people may ask to have a version of PackageMaker that can build > distribution scripts with a 10.3 OS since the OS is supporting that > feature. Don't see the problem here. > - Apple needs to 'end-of-life' its old OS versions (for instance with > the latest release of iTunes, 10.2 is considered dead) to be able to > concentrate on the next OS versions that pay bills and wages. This is double standards... I understand 10.1 and 10.2 being dead but 10.3 is still in wide use. Microsoft pushed out their new Installer technology they made available in XP to 2K, 98 and ME because they were all still in wide use. At the end of the day, it's an *installer* - there are plenty of other good reasons to upgrade to 10.4, but to get basic functionality in Installer is *not* an acceptable one. -- Best regards, Peter mailto:darkmatter@freeuk.com _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Installer-dev mailing list (Installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/installer-dev/site_archiver%40lists.… This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Re: Re[3]: Installer chewing up CPU time on 10.3 while running postinstall
by Stéphane Sudre 15 Oct '06

15 Oct '06

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com On dimanche, octobre 15, 2006, at 12:22 AM, Peter Mulholland wrote: [...] However - this now impedes our ability to diagnose install issues. Why on earth, have Apple not pushed out Installer updates to 10.3 users? Distribution scripts and such would make our lives a hell of a lot easier! Some possible reasons: - it may also require updating the BOM framework. - QA cost and lack of resources. _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Installer-dev mailing list (Installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/installer-dev/site_archiver%40lists.… - pushing out Installer.app update would require pushing out Installation.framework update. - it may also require updating the Cocoa frameworks or rewrite some methods - it may require trusting the Javascript engine on 10.3 to be the same as the 10.4's one - people may ask to have a version of PackageMaker that can build distribution scripts with a 10.3 OS since the OS is supporting that feature. - Apple needs to 'end-of-life' its old OS versions (for instance with the latest release of iTunes, 10.2 is considered dead) to be able to concentrate on the next OS versions that pay bills and wages. This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Re: Re[3]: Installer chewing up CPU time on 10.3 while running postinstall
by Bill Coderre 14 Oct '06

14 Oct '06

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com Appear to have resolved this - the issue is that 7za prints a line for each file it extracts to stdout. On 10.3, this causes Installer to seriously chew cpu time, presumably as it's adding the output to the log. I made each extract run with >/dev/null and the problem is greatly reduced. However - this now impedes our ability to diagnose install issues. Why on earth, have Apple not pushed out Installer updates to 10.3 users? Distribution scripts and such would make our lives a hell of a lot easier! I'll let the Installer.app engineers explain. _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Installer-dev mailing list (Installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/installer-dev/site_archiver%40lists.… On Oct 14, 2006, at 3:22 PM, Peter Mulholland wrote: Yes, that's definitely the reason. Logging is comparatively slow in Installers for Mac OS X < 10.4. This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Re[3]: Installer chewing up CPU time on 10.3 while running postinstall
by Peter Mulholland 14 Oct '06

14 Oct '06

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com Hello all, Appear to have resolved this - the issue is that 7za prints a line for each file it extracts to stdout. On 10.3, this causes Installer to seriously chew cpu time, presumably as it's adding the output to the log. I made each extract run with >/dev/null and the problem is greatly reduced. However - this now impedes our ability to diagnose install issues. Why on earth, have Apple not pushed out Installer updates to 10.3 users? Distribution scripts and such would make our lives a hell of a lot easier! -- Best regards, Peter mailto:darkmatter@freeuk.com _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Installer-dev mailing list (Installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/installer-dev/site_archiver%40lists.… This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Re[3]: Installer chewing up CPU time on 10.3 while running postinstall
by Peter Mulholland 14 Oct '06

14 Oct '06

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com Hi, To follow up, extracting with 7za by hand from Terminal runs at normal speed. Running the same "postinstall" script from Terminal works. >> - use Shark to see where Installer.app is claiming "All your CPU belong >> to us". Can someone please tell me which version of CHUD to get that actually *installs* on 10.3 ?! I Downloaded 4.4.3 from ftp.apple.com (no, it isn't on ADC as Apple claim) and it demands 10.4 despite both Softpedia and Macupdate saying otherwise.... -- Best regards, Peter mailto:darkmatter@freeuk.com _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Installer-dev mailing list (Installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/installer-dev/site_archiver%40lists.… This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Re[2]: Installer chewing up CPU time on 10.3 while running postinstall
by Peter Mulholland 14 Oct '06

14 Oct '06

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com Hello Stéphane, Saturday, October 14, 2006, 9:13:28 AM, you wrote: > On samedi, octobre 14, 2006, at 12:32 AM, Peter Mulholland wrote: > List of stupid ideas from most stupid to half stupid: > - are you using a postinstall or postflight script? It could be that > it's super fast on one machine because it's an upgrade. Postinstall and Postupgrade run the same script. The user can re-run the installer to "refresh" the app should it become corrupt for some reason. I will try going back to Postflight and see if this has any effect. > - does the 7za work in Panther? Of course :) One thing I haven't tried, is extracting by hand yet. > - what is the encoding and line ending of the script? it was made with GNU nano, so should be ASCII UNIX. > - could it be a permission issue? 7za doesn't store permissions so I don't see how it could be. > - use Shark to see where Installer.app is claiming "All your CPU belong > to us". Will do this... BTW Iceberg is great ;) Is there any chance of adding the option to manually change the "Installed size" though? Due to the archive extraction i'm using, I have to manually change that value in Archive.sizes and the Info.plist -- Best regards, Peter mailto:darkmatter@freeuk.com _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Installer-dev mailing list (Installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/installer-dev/site_archiver%40lists.… This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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PackageMaker fails when run from the command line
by Walter 14 Oct '06

14 Oct '06

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: Installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com Thread-index: AcbvhlLFkTzsNFt5Edue3gAWy8yhdA== Thread-topic: PackageMaker fails when run from the command line User-agent: Microsoft-Entourage/11.2.5.060620 The following command fails: /Developer/Applications/Utilities/PackageMaker.app/Contents/MacOS/PackageMak er -build -proj myProject.pmproj -p myProject.pkg -v The error is: "No root specified for archive". If I change "root" on the contents pane to an Absolute folder, then it works. Does anyone know what I need to do to get it to use a folder that is relative to the project? I'm using PackageMaker 2.1 (122) Walter _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Installer-dev mailing list (Installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/installer-dev/site_archiver%40lists.… This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Requirements and Mac OS X evolution
by Stéphane Sudre 14 Oct '06

14 Oct '06

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com On Mac OS X 10.2, the physical memory is known via hw.physmem. On Mac OS X 10.4, the physical memory is known via hw.memsize. Distribution List probably but what if you don't want or can't use them? _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Installer-dev mailing list (Installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/installer-dev/site_archiver%40lists.… It seems that there are some evolutions in Mac OS X that can impact requirements, sysctl ones for instance. Considering that if one name changed once, all can change in the future, what is the official recommended way to deal with this kind of "oops, we changed it again" issue? BTW: search for distribution list on developer.apple.com does not return Installation documentation on the first page, strange... This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Re: Installer chewing up CPU time on 10.3 while running postinstall
by Stéphane Sudre 14 Oct '06

14 Oct '06

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com On samedi, octobre 14, 2006, at 12:32 AM, Peter Mulholland wrote: Hi, List of stupid ideas from most stupid to half stupid: - does the 7za work in Panther? - what is the encoding and line ending of the script? - could it be a permission issue? _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Installer-dev mailing list (Installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/installer-dev/site_archiver%40lists.… I'm releasing a game using Apple Installer, one package for each language the game supports. Due to the need to fit it all onto one CD, we have used 7zip to compress the data. The package installs the game's app bundle, and then a "postinstall" script runs which extracts the game data into the bundle's Resources folder. On 10.4 this is fine, and runs fairly fast (10 minutes on an old 400Mhz G4). On the same machine, under 10.3, it is excruciatingly slow. Looking at whats going on using Activity Monitor shows the Installer process using all of the CPU power, and 7za (the dearchiver) using none. On 10.4, the dearchiver is quite rightly using the most CPU power. Whats going on here? We can't ship the game like that for 10.3 users, and I can't just use the .pax format as it doesn't compress well enough... not to mention all of this is fine on 10.4! - are you using a postinstall or postflight script? It could be that it's super fast on one machine because it's an upgrade. - use Shark to see where Installer.app is claiming "All your CPU belong to us". This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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