Re: Interactivity pre and post install

["George Pajari" <George Pajari Faximum com>]

Peter:

Here are some ideas:

Obviously if this extension is going to be optional then there must be some
way for the script to know that user input is not going to be available so
it can govern itself appropriately.

It would also be nice if the mechanism allowed the user to save the
responses required for a particular package so that an automated remote
installer could use that canned response file to satisfy the input requests
from the application. This latter approach would require either that the
questions be consistent (i.e. the sequence of later questions could not
depend on the answers to earlier questions) or that questions are labelled
so that one could associate answers with questions more reliably than just
by order (i.e. answer three belongs to question three).

Here are the sorts of things we have asked for in the past on platforms that
permit input:

1. Select product/profile to install (we sometimes have a single install
package for different members of the same product family).
2. Product activation key.
3. Directory to use for: product installation (default /opt/...),
configuration (/etc/opt/...), and spool (/var/opt/...) files.
4. Modem device to use.

The other thing we would like to see is the ability to display installation
progress messages. Our install scripts can take a minute or two to run and
the lack of feedback during this period can be worrisome to users. Also in
the unlikely event the install script hangs (some of ours involve
communications with other processes that may, in rare cases, not
timeout/return)  the last message displayed can provide Tech Support with
invaluable information in troubleshooting the problem.

Thanks and good luck!

g.