[wpkg-users] Ideas for features.

[Falko Trojahn]

Hi,

>>  2) Extra <check> rules;
>> 	 I have "Battery" checks; to detect laptops, "Disk Size/Free"
>> checks; to prevent installs clogged up and failing from disk space
>> problems, "RAM" checks; to stop installs failing because of
>> pre-requisites.
> 
> Hmm, shouldn't the installer check these requirements (diskspace, 
> memory...) and fail with an appropriate exit code if it does not meet 
> the minimum requirements?
> 
> Checks are meant to check if an application is installed or not. If 
> somebody would define a check like "memfree > 512MB" then this check 
> would probably fail after next boot after the installation of some 
> additional services. Thus triggering a check failure and making WPKG 
> think the application is not installed.
> 

Regarding a check of disk space requirements, I think this would be a
really useful feature: from time to time I've got machines without
enough disk space to install e.g. office, acrobat8, sometimes even
updates (SP3 ...) etc.

So it would be a really good idea to have something like a
"pre-flight-check" to check if the space for installation is available
before trying to install:

If there is no check and not enough space, installers might hang issuing
an error dialog, installers make the machine really slow until they
recognize that there is not enough space to install and so on.

Of course we might check for space in the pre action command of Wpkg
client (exit >= 0 if not enough space) - but this cannot be made
dependent from size of applications.

What do you think about:

<depends>
  <check type="freespace" condition="greaterorequal" value="500" />
</depends>

Just my 2¢
Falko