Packpanda alternatives for other systems

General Discussion
1

If I’m not wrong, packpanda gives you a windows installer with all needed files, somehow overweight file but it works fine.

What if I wanted to make a linux release (or other platforms) ?

There is other tools packpanda-like for each system, can packpanda be configured for linux?

How do you pack your non-windows games?

2

I recommend stuffing the files in some directory, and making a .deb or .rpm package for that.
For example, store your python files in /usr/lib/yourgame/, add a .pth file pointing to it in /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/ and create a file called /usr/bin/yourgame, that somehow looks like this:

#!/bin/sh
cd /usr/lib/yourgame/
python2.5 run.py

You can even include the Panda3D libraries. There are plenty resources on the internet (google) about how to create a .rpm or .deb file.
It’s fairly simple, that’s why there’s no packpanda for linux.

If you want to hide your code (and compile your stuff) you should look into pyinstaller, which can create a binary (also for linux, I believe.).

3

delivering only debs and rpms is not the best idea, i think. how about a plain tar-file, which you can make out your packages yourself? you should know, there are some more than RPM and DEB and unpacking a deb file and repacking it with another file hierarchy is kinda annoying, i think…

4

For linux users,it aint that easy.
I recommend making a .tar.gz with the sourcecode and files.That way any linux distro will be able to run it.
If you want it closed source,thats harder.
Make a .deb and .rpm,for most famous distros use it.
Packpanda uses NSIS,so its only for Windows for now.

5

that also is the case for binary packages

i think, that’s not an argument. and by the way: RPM and DEB are simple archives, too. you can unpack them like a tar(.gz) with some tools

6

Okay guys, because this has been requested so much, I’ve spent the evening porting packpanda to linux. It builds an .rpm and/or .deb package which installs the game into /usr/share/games/blah/ and /usr/lib/games/blah/, and a runscript into /usr/bin/blah/.

Can you guys grab the latest version of direct/src/directscripts/packpanda.py and see if it works for you? I only tested it with .debs on my own game and it seemed to work good. I haven’t tried all options, though.