[wpkg-users] recommended directory structure for wpkg packages in combination with using unattended from http://sf.net/projects/unatttended

[Falko Trojahn]

Hi Urs,
> Are there any people out there that are using the combination of
> unattended from sourceforge and wpkg from wpkg.org?
>
> If you are using the two, how have you decided to combine or split the
> two products 'packages tree'?
Yes, we are using both of them integrated, using same share, without
any hazzle so far. Up to now I've used the batches from unattended e.g.
ofc2003.bat to download the patches and manually integrated them in
packages.xml. I use a subdirectory \wpkg for admin-only batches like
wpkg-install.bat etc.

But it would be nice to have a similar system for update and automatic
download of needed patches like the "prepare" and "script-update" way of
unattended. It's sometimes a bit hard to find out e.g. the registry keys
for the uninstall check, so a common repository like the cvs from
unattended  - including package.xml snippets - would be nice. I think the
recent "split patch" will be a good foundation for that - we just would
have to setup a
cvs location for the xml of packages/updates, and perhaps we can use a
similar, xml adapted syntax for the download of the needed files, like the
":: URL ..." syntax in unattended.

Of course we would need a way to have common syntax for the server-share
in the xml, at least a variable which can be set individually, instead
of the chaos with "\\myserver\myshare" in the silent installers in the
wpkg Wiki.

>
> We currently have two samba shares, one for unattended and one for wpkg.
> And each one has it's own package tree. But this can easily lead to
> silly duplication, of some packages being in both package trees. And
> worse than that some packages not liking being upgraded from a different
> source path than they were originally installed from etc.
>
> How have you solved it?
Recently I started to use the wpkg packages in unattended scripts like this:
  cscript %Z%\wpkg.js /install:<package name here>
What we need to use this more smoothly is an option like
  wpkg.js /install:<profile id here>
since I don't want to include every single package in a script - firefox
with plugins and office xx with patches should install with one single line.

> Or maybe the feedback some of you experienced guys have on this is, to
> not use unatteneded for anything other than the OS install and have
> absolutely everything else done by wpkg. What hard and valuable lessons
> have you learned over time?
The only problem when installing wpkg together with unattended is that
a user without logging in cannot see the progress of the installation,
thinks "all right, I do it" and of course something goes wrong then ...
It would be nice to have a way to see the progress of the installation,
e. g. by changing the "press ctrl-alt-del" screen to something else.
May be someone has an idea here.

> Also is there a directory structure for wpkg repositories that is
> becomning the 'standard', maybe due to the way some of the gui or other
> auxiliary stuff like installation scripts are being made available? Just
> trying to minimize the local changes we have to do, to what is being
> made available for download.
Yes, I think a similar structure like unattended would be nice, and it
should be possible to integrate wpkg and unattended.

Best regards,
Falko







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