Provide installers for Apache NetBeans releases for Windows, Linux, and Mac OSX
Windows
I would like to share the script with you to create the installers. Please find the attached ISS script in this email. You can open it using Notepad or any other text editor app of your choice. This script will create a 32-bit installer. Though you can also tweak the script to create a 64-bit installer. (Some of the paths point to my computer, please change that according to yours.)
Action Items:
- The above referenced script needs to be donated to Apache NetBeans.
- Someone in Apache NetBeans needs to use the script to create the installer.
- Maybe this can be automated?
- The installer needs to be made available on the Apache NetBeans download page.
Mac OSX
This debate was had once about 14 years ago - and the decision to go with .pkg installers on Mac OSX was made for this reason: There were a lot of "NetBeans is unusably slow" reports on OSX. The reason? A LOT of users never unpacked the .app - they were running it directly from the mounted, compressed .dmg image. It turns out that's not that unusual. Random access Java classloading does not play nicely AT ALL with the compression used for .dmg images. I strongly recommend not repeating that mistake.
https://github.com/carljmosca/netbeans-macos-bundle
Action items:
- We need to have some kind of package, whether DMG or whatever, available on the download page.
Linux
- The above is created by Apache NetBeans infrastructure (not sure how up to date this is): https://builds.apache.org/view/Incubator%20Projects/job/incubator-netbeans-snap-packages/, hence can be called Apache NetBeans, and be stated as such on the Apache NetBeans download page, i.e., this is an official Apache NetBeans distribution.