[news.eclipse.tools] Re: Installation tool recommended

[Vlad Klicnik <klicnik@xxxxxxxxxx>]

As a general "policy" Eclipse does not mandate the use of any one particular
installer technology. Each product team packaging Eclipse-based products and
components will be able to select the installation technology of their choice.

Having said this, Eclipse supports 2 basic approaches for doing the
installation:

(1) traditional packaged install
(2) using built-in Eclipse update support

In the first approach the only thing that matters is that the resulting file
layout after the installation process follows the Eclipse specification, plus
any OS registration information is updated according to the Eclipse
specification (before you ask, the specs are still being evolved). The
traditional installer will need to call specific Eclipse "utilities" at
particular points in the install and uninstall (maintain Eclipse component
state).

The second approach allows for individual components, or collections of
components, to be installed and updated over the web. For this scenario, the
components are packaged as Java .jars (have specified content, and manifest
files). The resulting .jars are posted on an http server. The server directory
structure is specified by Eclipse. Users of Eclipse can install new components
or obtain service to an existing component by interacting with a wizard
(integrated into the workbench).

The Eclipse update function can also be called as an installer utility from a
traditional install (mix of the 2 scenarios). This way, one can produce a
packaged install by using a traditional installer (scenario 1) to install the
minimal Eclipse platform (includes the update functions) and then directly
invoke the update wizard (scenario 2) to install the actual tool components
from the CD that was packaged essentially as an image of an update server (ie.
CD contains component .jars in a directory structure consistent with an update
server).

Hope this helps.