Illwinter Game Installer
Illwinter Front Page
Screenshot
The Illwinter Game Installer is an installer creator for Linux. All
application files are compressed into a single linux executable making
it highly suitable for web downloads. The Illwinter Installer is very
easy to use both for the game developer and the end user.
Creating an installer is simply the matter of running the illinstaller
command line application like this for instance: illinstaller
--menustrategy --icon datafiles/coe.xpm --foldername coedemo --xpm
coebanner.xpm coe datafiles/* . That would create a standalone
installation file for CoE that creates a menu entry among strategy
games and a suitable icon in the menu. The installer would also
display the coebanner.xpm image during installation, screenshot.
Features
* Multithreaded, starts unpacking data even before you have chosen where
to install it.
* High performance, utilizes multiple cpus if possible.
* Easy to use for both end user and developer.
* Installation location is stored in a simple text file.
* Checks for available disk space and write permissions.
* Uses bzip2 compression.
* Installation file is a single executable file.
* Graphical, uses GTK.
* Can install menu entries in many Gnome and KDE menus.
* It is free, but it is not open source.
So now you must wonder what is bad. Well, you can't make a really
complicated installation with it, like installing from multiple CDs or
installing some shared libraries if they are needed.
Download
Installer for Linux x86 (ver 1.20): illwinter_installer_120_x86.run
Installer for Linux ppc (ver 1.20): illwinter_installer_120_ppc.run
Documentation
illinstaller --help list all the available command line
switches.
--xpm XXX This switch sets the banner for the installer. XXX
should be an XPM file that is 294x74 pixels large.
This file
should not be included among your files to be installed.
--icon XXX XXX should be a PNG file that will be used as an
icon in the Gnome and KDE start menus. Alpha transparency can be used
to make see through parts. A size of 64x64 pixels is ok. This file
must also be included among your files to be installed.
--foldername XXX XXX is the default name of the directory where
your game will be placed (e.g. --foldername coedemo). This is also
the name of your install location file. So in the previous example
the install location file would be created as
/usr/local/.install_locations/coedemo or
~/.install_locations/coedemo . XXX mustn't contain any spaces.
Finding out where my game is installed
The Illwinter
Installer always creates an install location file that contains the
path where your game is located. This file contains one line of text
that says where your game is located e.g. /usr/local/games/CoE . There
may or may not be a few line feeds (\n) or returns (\r) at the end of
that line. Read this file to find out where all your data files are
located. See --foldername to find out where the install location file
is installed.
Version History
Version 1.30
* Text mode installation possible with the --textmode switch
Version 1.20
* No longer requires libbz2
Version 1.10
* The first one
Questions and suggestions concerning the installer can be sent to support@illwinter.com