From: Frank Schmitt <invalid@...>
Date: 2003-12-09T19:32:01+09:00
Subject: Re: Running Ruby from a CD

ptkwt@aracnet.com (Phil Tomson) writes:

> I'm looking into a contract to develop a license manager/installation tool 
> for a software CD.  The CD has several different tools on it and allows 
> the user to install and use the software for a trial period.  The license 
> manager/installation tool has to be able to determine if it's a trial 
> license or a real license and it also has to allow the user to purchase a 
> real license (by going online) for any or all of the products on the CD.
> Oh, and it has to work with both Linux (by interacting with the rpm 
> manager) and Windows (by interacting with the registry).
> 
> Currently they've done this tool in C++ and has no gui.  The customer is 
> talking about an upgrade of the tool and a possible gui (and possibly 
> using Tk for the GUI).  Of course, I'm 
> thinking that there might be a possiblility to use Ruby for this, but the 
> first problem is that Ruby isn't installed everywhere.  So then I got the 
> idea to run Ruby directly from the CD somehow - has anyone done this sort 
> of thing?
> 
> Also, since the same CD has to work on both Windows or Linux, I need to 
> have two Ruby's installed.  How would I determine which one to run?

I'd just put a setup.bat and a setup.sh file on the CD, which then calls
the ruby interpreter from the CD with the appropriate .rb file.
Of course, your user has to be clever enough to figure out whether to
execute setup.bat or setup.sh :-)

kind regards
frank

-- 
Frank Schmitt 
4SC AG		phone: +49 89 700763-0
		e-mail: frankNO DOT SPAMschmitt AT 4sc DOT com