[aklug] Questions on publishing/packaging Linux software

AKLUG,

The FAQ on the writing section on reddit says that "A first novel won’t be
as much work as you think. It will be much
more.<http://www.reddit.com/r/writing/wiki/faq>
"

I'm finding that the same applies for writing install scripts and
documentation for an open source web application project that I'm maybe a
few weeks away from releasing into the wild. (Consequently, it's a novel
writing tool.)

I've got about 17k words into the documentation for the user manual,
installation guide, configuration files, FAQs, and other topics of
interest. I'm trying to put a lot of effort into the documentation as the
potential audience for the application ranges from the
otaku-neckbeard-hacker crowd to the cafe-dwelling creatives with zero
tolerance for config files and, well, everything I love. It has been a
trying, mentally exhausting experience, one which I will try to mitigate in
the future by writing my documentation *as* I implement features, not
months afterwards.

And in the same way I don't relish sitting down and writing 17K words over
the course of a weekend, I also never want to write an install script
again. I tried to develop the application to have minimal dependencies
(PHP, git, and a web server), but just getting those dependencies in place
and configured is much more difficult than just plopping my application
into /var/www/, creating a few temp directories, and running a few choice
chowns and chmods.

Trying to document the install process, as well as streamline it, appears
to be hard problem to solve. I'd prefer to not have to maintain .deb or
.rpms, but I also don't want to endlessly maintain an installation Bash
script.

I guess my questions for you are, if you've developed sizable open source
applications/libraries before:
 - How have you published these things such that the documentation doesn't
cast the reader into the hell of scouring the man pages and forum posts to
get your dependencies installed?
 - How have you maintained your releases such that they're easy to
reproduce, are somewhat platform agnostic, and are friendly to install?

Thanks,
Josh Rhoades

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Received on Sat Jan 26 13:01:43 2013