Omaha: Software installer and auto-updater for Windows

https://code.google.com/p/omaha/

by wiradikusuma • 12 years ago

63 33 12 years ago

code.google.com

damian2000• 12 years ago

Relevant post on StackOverflow here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3711435/what-is-the-exper...

sillysaurus33• 12 years ago

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.

rbanffy2• 12 years ago

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.

jonemo• 12 years ago

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

adamnemecek• 12 years ago

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

goldenkey• 12 years ago

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

plorg• 12 years ago

Probably not relevant, but Google has a datacenter in Council Bluffs, IA, which is just across the river from Omaha, NE.

caiob• 12 years ago

Peyton Manning?

thejosh• 12 years ago

ninite is quite good, but closed source

will_hughes• 12 years ago

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.

RachelF• 12 years ago

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

kijin2• 12 years ago

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• 12 years ago

Only works with Python 2.4, too. Gross.

rectangletangle• 12 years ago

What's preventing it from running on more modern versions of Python, like 2.7?

biggerfisch• 12 years ago

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?

sillysaurus33• 12 years ago

That's not complicated for Windows dev. Windows devs are used to a bunch of configuration, because they grew up with it. Besides, those steps are easy to follow, and can be done quickly.

Setting environment variables is as easy as writing a .cmd file that sets them for you.

Most devs have Python installed.

Installing Scons is easy.

A paid version of VS can be easily pirated if you don't feel like paying for it. This isn't by accident: MS would rather you be writing Windows software than non-Windows software. And if you're writing software to sell, then a license isn't costly: https://www.google.com/shopping/product/7152061321388788226

stingraycharles• 12 years ago

I understand what you're saying, but it simply is not an excuse.

The whole point of this tool is to make installing and updating packages easier, but at the same time they have one of the most complicated installation instructions for a standalone software package ever. That is something that makes me wonder how much they really care about simplifying the workflow of installing and updating packages.

voltagex_• 12 years ago

Maybe https://github.com/vslavik/winsparkle instead?

jbk• 12 years ago

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.

psychotik• 12 years ago

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

mimog• 12 years ago

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• 12 years ago

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.

veidelis• 12 years ago

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

rainmaking• 12 years ago

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.

Rafert• 12 years ago

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...

pea• 12 years ago

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• 12 years ago

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

Hominem• 12 years ago

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.

robodale• 12 years ago

I use Innosetup.

Omaha: Software installer and auto-updater for Windows

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