When installing on Linux, as of version 4.5 the customer now must run an RPM package. This shift from {{install.bin}} to {{tss-x.x.x.x86_xx.rpm}} has caused a lot of problems for our existing customers coming from 3.x for several reasons.
* RPMs must be installed as either the root user or a user that has sudo access. Previously the install.bin didn't require that level of access so for an existing Spotfire customer, their user who currently owns their existing 3.x installation might not have the correct privileges to upgrade to 4.5 or later and will therefore need to ask for assistance from a Linux Admin.
* The {{tss-#.#.#.x86_xx.rpm}} installs into the {{/usr/local/bin/tibco/tss/#.#.#/}} directory and does not allow the package to be relocated during installation using the standard {{-relocate}} flag. Previously in 3.x the {{install.bin}} could be installed into any directory path, and so now if they run an upgrade and want to keep the same directory structure, they cannot. It's possible to move the directory after the fact, but then the customer must modify several scripts, including the {{/etc/init.d/tss-5.5.0}} daemon to point to the correct location. All those manual steps are prone to human errors and customers hate manual steps anyway.
* At the end of the Installation on Linux, it does not guide you on what to do next. At the end of the Installation on Windows it gives you three options (Launch the configuration tool, Launch the upgrade tool, Exit the installation wizard). On Linux from the command line interface (CLI) it installs the RPM and then tells you that *"You must now execute /usr/local/bin/tibco/tss/5.5.0/configure to complete the configuration."* However, that script must also be run as root. It doesn't make any mention on how to run that script, nor that you must have root privileges to do so. If the customer installs the RPM using the GUI RPM installer Archive Manager it will not provide any feedback at all at the end of a successful installation. The UI simply disappears once the progress bar reaches the end.
Perhaps the InstallShield Installer could be used on Linux with a GUI and a text based installer that asks questions and guides the user through the installation could be used on Linux systems that only have a command line interface available.
Hi,
It is possible to extract the rpm using standard system commands:
Anyhow, as from Fedora packaging guidelines:
The use of RPM's facility for generating relocatable packages is strongly discouraged. It is difficult to make work properly, impossible to use from the installer or from yum, and not generally necessary if other packaging guidelines are followed. However, in the unlikely event that you have a good reason to make a package relocatable, you MUST state this intent and reasoning in the request for package review.
These being the upstream packages for RHEL, you are very unlikely to find a relocatable package in an official Fedora, RHEL/CentOS, or EPEL distribution repository.
You might, however, very rarely find third-party RPMs which are relocatable. But there's no good way to install or manage them once they are installed, as dependency managers can't handle them, and there's little point to trying to relocate the package anyway.