placeholder bug for whoever gets motivated enough to create the Unix install wizard.

this is a "help wanted" bug! :-)

Pavlov has volunteered to take on this. I'm reassigning this bug to him. Here is the url for the current spec of the windows installer: http://grok/install/windows/ngSetup/install_spec_50.html

mass-moving all m12 bugs to m13

Samir has already done quite a bit of work on the backend for unix installers. I'm reassigning this to Samir, and setting milestone to M16, because new Unix installer is not a beta 1 requiement (it's a nice to have). pavlov, you're still welcome to pitch in! :-)

Could you post the spec referenced earlier in this bug to the appropriate spot on mozilla.org (and make that the authoritative home for that doc)? Otherwise it will be hard for anyone to pitch in and help. http://www.public.asu.edu/~arturner/greed/www.public.asu.edu/~arturner/greed/ contains an extremely tiny standalone downloading library which is GPLed. Perhaps the maintainer could be convinced to dual-license it with the MPL, and we could leverage off of that.

*** Bug 22268 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

I know that this bug doesn't seem very important, but I have to put in my two cents from a usability standpoint. I am only starting to be anywhere near a saavy user of Linux. I really need to be able to put an icon on my desktop to be able to start this beast. This doesn't seem to be possible, I am guessing because the libraries are in the package directory instead of some organized library location, or perhaps because I need to put it in the library path. Unless I can eventually crack the nut as to why I can't start the thing from an icon in KDE, I doubt that you will ever see a person like me use M14 frequently enough to give you the help you need to find bugs. I would do the installer myself if I thought I could get it done in ample time, but I fear that I am far too much of a novice still. (Heck, I haven't even been able to solve the problem yet.) If someone needs to use a web browser, it seems significantly more likely that they will press on the cozy, pre-existing icon as opposed to going out to a console, changing to the package directory, and typing in "./mozilla". It isn't a matter of obstinence, it is a matter of convenience. It seems to me that the installer should fix a lot of this. While I know that there are a lot of other bugs that need priority, I don't think this one should be overlooked until a later date.

Matt, Thanks for the input. The Linux Install Wizard is close to completion. However, I'm afraid that since it is not on our beta1 criteria list it will not make it until after we ship beta1. Addressing the icon issue, the underlying XPInstall engine that performs the actual installation does not support shortcut/icon creation for the numerous flavors of desktop environments available for Linux, and more generally for Unix. So, even if we did get the Linux Install Wizard approved for beta1 it would not resolve your problem in its current form. However, your point regarding this is well taken and should be discussed on netscape.public.mozilla.xpinstall. Alternatively, feel free to file a bug against the "Installer: XPInstall Engine" component regarding the same.

adding sol. he's interested in files sizes of the mail and spellchecker .xpi files on linux. once this bug is fixed, we'll know that information.

Whoa there, we don't need this bug fixed to create the .xpi files! The zippy install files are useful for upgrading even apart from a native install wizard that will download and launch them -- once you have an older version of mozilla you have everything you need to upgrade yourself using new .xpis. See for example the "update.html" that's in the windows commercial build directory. We should be producing the .xpi files for Unix anyway. We have the package lists (which grow stale if not tested), we have the scripts to build them, they just need to be turned on. Bug 28568 is the closest I can find to this. What happened to the more generic "need Linux xpis" bug?

The first cut is complete and will land on the trunk once it reopens for mainstream development.

This bug will also track the generation of unix .xpis since this part of the installer.

cc'ing some build team friends! :-) We'll eventually need build automation to generate Unix xpi's for Linux Install Wizard. The Wizard work is close to be done.

I've checked in the build automation too. I'll mail granrose more details and we have discussed using the build automation already. He plans to begin delivering the installer soon. This includes the automation to generate unix .xpis. The wizard has been turned on for Linux since that is apparently all we are delivering for now. May work on porting to Solaris if there is time after M16. I'll make preliminary deliveries to Grace to iron out any issues I have missed using my unix account.

using installer wizard week of 4/10