It sounds great, but I know how badly it works in practice. That's exactly how Bricolage works. In practice there's just too many ways to setup an Apache install. Trying to adapt to them all automatically, even with a bunch of configuration options, is an endless game of whack-a-mole. I'm determined to find something better.

I'm not understaning why you don't just create a conf file that sets up a name virtual server and add

# --- added by Bricolage configurator ---
Include /htc/httpd/bricolage.conf
# --- added by Bricolage configurator ---
[download]

And, we can find easy answers to answers to general "where do I put this?" questions for alll the major distros.

OTOH, if they don't have a competently installed Apache, sending a package that builds one from source would be a blessing to them. Why not give them the option to migrate from their distro apache to a "good" apache?

And finally, I'd feel concerned about the consequences of your apache forking 30 children on a heavily used site: If the admins lack enough clue to install Apache from source, they won't know what hit them. Then again, a mod_perl site used that heavily would have a more competent sysadmin, I think.

Who's your target audience: have they clue or not?

I'm not understaning...

I don't know to explain it to you any better than to say that it doesn't work very often. If you need proof, just check out Bricolage and then take a look at Bricolage's bug database under 'Installation'.

And finally, I'd feel concerned about the consequences of your apache forking 30 children...

That's strange. 30 processes is nothing to a modern Linux or BSD system with reasonable hardware. I'll be sure to tell people how much resource usage to expect, but I doubt it will be enough to put a dent in anyone's load average. This application is a development tool, like Bricolage, and not a front-end web service.

Who's your target audience: have they clue or not?

I think an installation system should target people with enough Unix experience to enter a few commands at a shell prompt and edit a text file. I've come to learn that expecting more is expecting too much.

-sam

Tregar said:

don't know to explain it to you any better than to say that it doesn't work very often. If you need proof, just check out Bricolage and then take a look at Bricolage's bug database under 'Installation'.

OK, I'll take your word for it about the prevalence of reported install bugs. If the majority of bugs reported come under the install category, then I agree the idea of making *nix software installs as easy as on Windows has merit, if only to take advantage of the 80/20 rule.

That's strange. 30 processes is nothing to a modern Linux or BSD system with reasonable hardware. I'll be sure to tell people how much resource usage to expect, but I doubt it will be enough to put a dent in anyone's load average. This application is a development tool, like Bricolage, and not a front-end web service.

Ah gotcha. I was thinking in terms of memory usage leading to thrashing. Even then I suppose it's not too bad, One can build very nice Athlon servers with 1 GB RAM, 60 GB hard drives and dual server NICs for under $1K.

I think an installation system should target people with enough Unix experience to enter a few commands at a shell prompt and edit a text file. I've come to learn that expecting more is expecting too much.

OK, I can go along with that. I remember listening to the sysadmin for the Sun I did my CS homework on 15 years ago complaining about the lack of respect some of the Sun tech support engineers would give him ... nice guy, but not really cut out for a career in high tech :)