[Kde-bindings] how to distribute applications using korundum

[Ian Monroe]

On Wed, Sep 22, 2010 at 4:01 AM, Stefano Crocco <stefano.crocco at alice.it> wrote:
> Hello to everyone
> I'm finishing the first alpha version of my application using korundum. Now,
> the problem I'm facing is the following: how do I distribute it?
>
> My first idea was to create a gem for it. I like this solution because:
> a) it's familiar to ruby users (my application is for ruby developers)
> b) it automatically installs other gems my application depends on.
> Unfortunately, as far as I know, using rubygems has a serious drawback, that
> is you can't install .desktop files or icon files in the correct directory
> (like /usr/share, for example). I'm trying to find out whether there's some
> trick to force rubygems to install files outside the gems directory, but even
> if I found out a way, I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable to use it.
>
> Another other possibility coming to my mind is to distribute it as a tarball
> and use CMake to build and install it. This has drawbacks, too:
> a) it's more complicated to use than rubygems (unpack the tarball, create the
> build directory, run cmake, run make, run make install, against the semplicity
> of `gem install`)
> b) it forces the user to manually install dependncies.
>
> A third option could be to distribute the application as a gem, installing the
> .desktop file under the gems directory and tell the user to change the KDEDIRS
> environment variable to contain the installation directory. I don't like this
> too much because it's more work for the user, who should change the
> environment variable every time he installs a new version of the application,
> as the installation directory used by rubygems contains the version number.
>
> Does anyone has any suggestion or advice on this matter? I've already asked on
> the ruby mailing list, but I received no answer so far.

You could just have the application copy the .desktop files on the
user's first startup. If your users are able to install ruby gems, its
not asking much to launch your app once without a handy .desktop
launch icon. Certainly makes more sense then asking them to modify
their KDEDIRS.

And this is just temporary really. Once your application is
established, the distributions will package your application which is
the Correct Method for application distribution to Linux users. And it
solves all the problems you describe.

Ian