CD based app installer - feedback wanted!

[DeanLinkous]

Hey all.
Would a CD based software installer be useful? needed? wanted? crap?
As in, you pop in a cd, it autoplays, your browser pops up with a friendly webpage that lets you browse the software available on the CD with descriptions, screenshots, and maybe a mini-review or something and to install you just click on a button?
Thoughts?

edit - this would be for free/open software only! (remember I am a zealot)

[Grifter]

for free soft, i can't see it catching on, it would be far more useful for proprietary software, and in particular games (a la http://www.linuxgamepublishing.com )

[DeanLinkous]

Not suggesting anything professional. Nothing for OEMs or tier2 or any of that stuff. Just a homegrown effort to provide some software on a CD with a dead easy simple installer. Webpage, screenshots/description/mini-review maybe and a install button. Maybe a link to the homepage for the software and maybe a link to a forum thread to discuss the software or rate the software or both....

Just ISOs you can download or order for a couple bucks that provide software packages on a cd with a simple wepage front end. For a couple extra bucks you can request a CD with certain packages on it.

Maybe have a office ISO, game ISO, graphics ISO, multimedia ISO or something...

Actually I could have a (install from cd) button and a (install from the net) button.

It would simply be software that is currently in the repo or that I can ensure would install cleanly.

It would not provide anything that synaptic does not but it would be a bit simpler and no changing sources.list. It would not be a real application. It would simply be a page that called scripts that used dpkg/apt to install stuff silently and created a desktop icon.

Thanks for the feedback..........

[DeanLinkous]

I just figure that some users think that synaptic is too confusing and does not provide enough information?

Users are use to popping a cd in and having it pop up and have clicky buttons to install stuff.

I actually came up with this a couple/few years ago and dismissed it as stupid so never did anything with it.

[Grifter]

i know what you meant, and i'm not trying to shoot down the idea, infact what you suggest has been needed for quite some time now at least for proprietary linux games, which use the old loki-installer (which is free soft, you might be able to find that on icculus.org and check that out if you want)

i'm just saying that when it comes to free soft, it'll most likely be packaged and entered into the debian respositories making a separate installer cd entirely redundant

it would be most useful as a distro-unspecific installer type, but again, the only niche it would really fit into would be proprietary soft, but even so

it would probably be against most peoples' desire, to have self-executing code when you pop in a cd, even if you trust the source

[DeanLinkous]

Hey grifter,
That was just a general reply not directed at you. Just typing out thoughts not really replying.

The software would already (likely) be in the repository.

The only real self-executing part would be autoplay on the cd and if you do not have your machine setup to do that then it would not even do that.

I personally agree that it is pointless at least to me and that is why I dismissed it years ago - why would anyone want this when they could use synaptic. But the more forums I am on I see more and more users saying synaptic is confusing and doesnt provide enough info. I didnt think it got much easier that synaptic. And if I want info I find it myself. But who knows....

[Grifter]

I think you should code it, and point it out to lgp (which i linked to earlier), but that's from a terribly selfish point of view (: