Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!ns-mx!ns-mx.uiowa.edu!dbrenner From: dbrenner@icon.weeg.uiowa.edu (Doug Brenner) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: Default applications shipped on the 105 Meg drive Message-ID: Date: 6 Jan 91 03:26:49 GMT References: <20392.2784f527@oregon.uoregon.edu> Sender: news@ns-mx.uiowa.edu Distribution: usa Organization: U of Iowa, Iowa City, IA Lines: 44 In-reply-to: joe@oregon.uoregon.edu's message of 5 Jan 91 05:35:34 GMT I too have been reading the many notes from people trying to reconfigure their 105Mb slabs. I begin to wonder if the Installer program (new with OS 2.0) might prove an answer. In particular, this comment by Joe caught my eye. In article <20392.2784f527@oregon.uoregon.edu> joe@oregon.uoregon.edu writes: > This model would even lend itself to an "expert system" application > that would ask intelligent queries to help a naive user decide what > applications he should have installed, given his needs and the > available space; alternatively, a mimeod sheet showing the available > free space as-shipped and the size of each optional application would > probably also work just fine, given the loan of a calculator... [Stay with me, I tend to take the long road when traveling. Sorry.] Being lucky enough to have extra disk space on my NeXT cube, I decided to install Sybase. The documentation points you to an "Installer package" located in /NextLibrary/Packages/ThirdParty. Reading the Installer chapter (14) in the 2.0 User's Reference, I began to think back on the notes I'd seen about people trying to install such things as GCC. You see, the Installer allows you to intelligently collect related files into one "package" and then install those files into various system directories, etc. (Something like a 'make install' I would think.) Installer also lets you uninstall a package (recollect the related files into one location), load a new package from multiple floppies, or even completely delete a package from the system. Now I haven't seen the Extended Software Release on floppies yet, but just *suppose* it includes a package called GCC: You click on the GCC package and the Info panel of Installer tells you that the package takes up 4.3Mb of space, uncompressed. (You're in luck, you have that much room on your disk.) You click Install and you are prompted to start inserting floppies. Files start zooming across your disk being placed into /bin, /usr/include, etc. In no time you're compiling your "Hello, world!" program. Fact or fantasy -- I don't know. I would bet, however, that if NeXT hasn't done it, someone could. Anyone who's seen Installer in action with the Extended Edition 2.0 floppies care to comment? Doug Brenner