Linux software installer recommendations

I'm looking for a Linux software installer that is simple and easy to use. RPM which seems to be the most popular also seems to be a little too complex. I don't want to spend my time reading documentation on how to use and tweak an installer. It's more important to me to devote this time to the development of my apps.

It will be used for installing a commercial app. So, I don't want to get involved with licensing fees since I just barely break even on the application.

Can anybody make any installer recommendations?

I don't have any recommendations, but consider this: RPM works on 3 distributions (SuSE, RedHat/Fedora, Mandriva). DEB works on 2 (Debian, Ubuntu/Kubuntu). Fringe distros use even different formats.
But RPMs of different distros often need to be slightly different.

You could look at how other companies do it. Most of them, I think, just write custom install scripts.

Slackware uses the old rusty-trusty tgz files.

Anaconda is the installer of Fedora. Maybe it can be found seperately. I don't know.

Portage ;)
http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/about.xml

Use autotools if you want general portability accross linux distros.

Maybe SMART or autopackage

autotools isn't exactly a tool for installation of binary packages, though ...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CornedBee

autotools isn't exactly a tool for installation of binary packages, though ...

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Neither is Portage... what I like about it is that it has a USE variable that you can set in /etc/make.conf or in the command-line for compiler flags, and that everything just compiles without any hassle.

ebuild and emerge are tools though, and they comprise a way of installing binary or source distributed software, autotools is just a way to easily run a few commands to build something with lots of checking and the like.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CornedBee

autotools isn't exactly a tool for installation of binary packages, though ...

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Sure it is, you just have to build the package before you install it ;)

I like my rusty and trusty slackpacks (.tgz).

Thanx all for the info. It'll be a tough decision.

Thanx again!

just one little item.
according to the Linux Standards Base, RPM packages are the standard packages for binary instalation of software.
all the other install tool MUST support rpm packages to be standards compliant.
[ right now, only debian's package management tools also support rpm. this means debian, ubuntu, kubuntu, edubuntu, gnoppix, knoppix ( most single cdrom distros ) also support rpm, since the majority of distros are based on debian. debian has the largest repositories of software out of all the distros. ]