
Omaha: Software installer and auto-updater for Windows - wiradikusuma
https://code.google.com/p/omaha/
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kijin
This has got to be the most complicated packaging system ever invented. And I
thought .deb was complicated.

Just in order to use Omaha, you need:

\- A non-Express (i.e. paid) version of Visual Studio

\- Python

\- Scons

\- Set a bunch of environment variables, because who needs configuration
files?

~~~
kevingadd
Only works with Python 2.4, too. Gross.

~~~
biggerfisch
I've noticed this kind of thing with lots of Google products actually -
they're often written for downright ancient versions of python and can be a
nightmare to get working with modern pythons. Any clue as why this is?

~~~
rbanffy
> Any clue as why this is?

Lack of clues is always a possible explanation. Some people also want to make
sure their software runs on RHEL 5.

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damian2000
Relevant post on StackOverflow here:
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3711435/what-is-the-
exper...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3711435/what-is-the-experience-
with-google-omaha-their-auto-update-engine-for-chrome)

~~~
sillysaurus3
Pretty awesome:

"Now, a year later, do you have any updates to share regarding your experience
with Omaha?"

"The update system is still running well with no required maintenance for the
past year. The server gets almost a request a second at peak times... Omaha
checks for updates every 5 hours. If the version that the client has doesn't
match what is published it sends a URL (hosted by Rackspace) of the updater.
Omaha downloads, verifies, and runs the updater."

So, there's an upfront initial time investment to get it running, and then you
don't have to touch it and it still works a year later.

~~~
rbanffy
> If the version that the client has doesn't match what is published it sends
> a URL (hosted by Rackspace) of the updater

I am not sure it's a good idea to let a third party know what versions of what
you have installed on your machine.

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jbk
I wish it was with a more liberal license, to be honest...

Apache2 makes it incompatible with GPLv2. I guess I'll skip that for VLC...

A contrario, the crash reporter, Google-breakpad, is under a BSD license.

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pea
God we went down a rabbit hole trying to get omaha working last year. It is
seriously complex. It's much-needed though, as Windows Installers are perhaps
the most fucked things in existence. I am perhaps more excited for Github's
Squirrel (was Shimmer), which has an awesome team behind it and notes
simplicity as a priority.

~~~
mdpm
Haven't managed to get it to actually work, more than once (Tried to follow
docs when it was shimmer, dead ends, ditto now)

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rainmaking
I just looked into this, but it was ridiculously complex.

I just went for a Wix installer instead that installed cygwin cron as a
service. The cron job then rsyncs the current version into the install dir
every 5 hours. Finito.

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Hominem
Looks pretty cool, especially autoupdate. I'm going to take a closer look at
this. AFAIK, MS has dropped support for installshield LE in VS 2013 leaving
developers with the choice of buying installshield, using NSIS, or cobbling
together something with ORCA, if that is even possible. Deployment is
definitely the biggest pain point in windows development.

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Rafert
Do I understand correctly you'd need to implement small updates with Courgette
[1] yourself - aka it's on the Chrome side of things, not in Omaha?

[1]: [http://dev.chromium.org/developers/design-
documents/software...](http://dev.chromium.org/developers/design-
documents/software-updates-courgette)

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veidelis
I wish Firefox's auto-updater worked as smooth as Chrome's.

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mimog
Secunia PSI is an alternative that is great at keeping installed software
updated. It's free and keeps most software up to date without any hassle.

~~~
phireal
It's pretty slow at checking for new versions, though. I get the impression
that's because of the way they seem to scan your disk (it seems to be a brute
force "scan every directory on the disk looking for .exe files"). Also, it's
fairly common for it to flag your version as out of date and then be unable to
automatically update it (although it provides you a handy link to either fetch
the setup your self).

That said, it's handy to have a centralised point to check for updates.

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jonemo
What's in the name? Why Omaha of all places?

~~~
adamnemecek
Maybe something with Omaha beach? Like that Google is symbolically entering
MSFT's territory?

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goldenkey
Maybe something like Omaha Hold'Em. All the cards are on the table. /s

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RachelF
Nice package from Google. Much better than the buggy wyUpdate product we used
to use.

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robodale
I use Innosetup.

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thejosh
ninite is quite good, but closed source

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will_hughes
Ninite is awesome for setting up a new PC.

It's a completely different tangent to actually creating/managing the install
process for a piece of software though.

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psychotik
This isn't new, is it? Why is it here?

