need to know if packaging our application stack as an rpm is the right way to go

[mark meyer]

Hello all,

Environment: openSuSE 11.3.

Question: is packaging our application stack as an rpm - the right way to go?

Background:

we have a PHP, JBoss and Flex application stack that we currently package (via our build process) as a tar ball.  we distribute the tar ball on a CD or a thumb drive to our customers.

the install / upgrade process for our application stack, is invoked from the command line.  the process then un-archives the tar (which is just a large directory structure), sets up some symbolic links and finally runs a perl script.  the main perl script then runs several other scripts (perl and bash)

i have been asked to consider packaging our application as an rpm.


initially - i stayed away from rpms because of the following:

1) i knew i would have to support Windows at some point and wanted to use a package format (either zip or tar) that i could use on either OS (linux or windows)

2) i would not be compiling source code, only laying down (or over laying) files and directories


given the previous: can someone help me to understand if there is any advantage to moving our distribution to an rpm package structure?


would really appreciate the feedback,

thank you
mark




 		 	   		  
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