[13:17] <de-facto> Guys is that an easy way to create a .deb out of a .sh installer? maybe a wrapper script that tracks written files with a chroot-like env?
[13:18] <de-facto> Background: I have to install Mathematica which comes with a mathematica.sh installer and I would like to have its file tracked by apt
[13:23] <tomreyn> there is checkinstall, but it may not catch everything.
[13:23] <de-facto> Is that capable of running a .sh script? i thought it would invoke "make install"
[13:25] <de-facto> there also is alien, though again not sure if it can work on a .sh install script
[13:26] <de-facto> its a Makeself version 2.1.1
[13:34] <tomreyn> makeself concatenates an 'installer' shell script and a large binary blob, which is the actual payload.
[13:35] <tomreyn> http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/precise/man8/checkinstall.8.html states "checkinstall is a program that monitors an installation procedure (such as install, install.sh ), and creates a standard package for distribution"
[13:37] <tomreyn> that binary blob is a standard file archive, which could be handled by tar.
[13:37] <de-facto> yes its a tar appended to a sh script
[13:38] <de-facto> i was hoping something like this exists for debian based systems too https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/mathematica/
[13:45] <tomreyn> this 'package' axctually runs the installer
[13:47] <de-facto> yeah its not just an extract, a closed source Unix/Installer/MathInstaller is run from makeself
[13:49] <de-facto> actually I just dont like the idea of a closed source binary writing in arbitraty directories on my system without apt keeping track of the files
[13:49] <de-facto> thats why i want to have a deb
[13:54] <de-facto> maybe I can use the same approach the livecd from ubuntu uses and put the installer insde an overlayfs ?
[13:56] <de-facto> something like that here? https://askubuntu.com/questions/109413/how-do-i-use-overlayfs
[14:47] <tomreyn> you could try using open source software instead. ;)