R: R: [GRASS-dev] GRASS 6.3.0 to be released

[Glynn Clements]

Moritz Lennert wrote:

> >  >I would suggest two installers: one for GRASS alone, and one for the
> > various dependencies (PROJ, GDAL, MSys, ...). The idea is that you
> > shouldn't have to download all of the dependencies each time a new
> > version of GRASS is released.
> > we could do as follows:
> >  
> > 1. a *complete*, *first time* GRASS installer, based on latest release, 
> > with all the dependencies built-in
> > 2. and *updater*, installed along the *first installation*, that check 
> > the WinGRASS repository looking for last GRASS updates, and 
> > download/install only the latest updated files (both for GRASS and 
> > dependencies). It would be not an easy work, but I think that I'll can 
> > do it... even if not very soon :-)
> 
> This actually sounds much more sophisticated than what Glynn proposed. 
> Could you not simply propose one installer with only the latest 
> (complete) GRASS binaries. This installer could check for any existing 
> installation of GRASS and propose to erase that before installing the 
> new version, or install the new version next to the old.
> 
> The question then is: do we need a "complete" installer with everything 
> in it (as you suggest), or can we impose the burden of two installers on 
> people, i.e. as Glynn suggests: one GRASS installer + one Dependencies 
> installer. I think this would be the best solution for us, but it would 
> mean that at least for the first installation, users will have to 
> install two packages. If the GRASS installer could test for the 
> installation of the other package and propose to download it and lauch 
> its installation autmagically, then this might be the best solution.

I don't think that you even need to go that far. If downloading and
running (in the correct order) two installers is beyond the user's
abilities, chances are that they'll spend a couple of days flooding
the grass-user ML with noob questions before giving up on GRASS
altogether.

-- 
Glynn Clements <glynn at gclements.plus.com>