[MentalPower]

Hello again,

A few friends and I want to get some FS2-based gaming events going at the university we all go to. However in order to do this everyone that wants to participate needs to install FS2, so we thought, why reinvent the wheel? FSOInstaller.com has a nifty online distribution mechanism already in place. We quickly came to the realization that using FSOInstaller.com directly would be a "bad thing" since it would be an insane amount of bandwidth, noting that they already have bandwidth issues this is not a viable option. Which brought us to our latest idea, why not modify the FSOInstaller to use a local (inside the university) files repository? This seems like the perfect solution since it would give us the convenience of an online installation without the external bandwidth expenditure. However we also quickly noticed that it seems that the FSOInstaller is closed-source which hampered our progress. Any way we could get the source for the installer so that we can modify it to use an arbitrary location for the source files?

Thanks in advance

[chief1983]

Actually I mentioned to turey a while back it would be nice if it could use an existing file set at least, or be configured to download the files to later be used for an offline install, kinda like the old Internet Explorer installer.  But for now, you could try to download the DVD and use that.  There's a link in jr2's sig if you want it.  I'm trying to torrent it but it's going slow, but feel free to add yourselves if you want.  I was hoping to have it by the weekend for the lan party at my school.  It'd probably be more efficient for you then to just get the dvd for now, and then just burn some copies to hand out.

[jr2]

siggy... 

[RazorsKiss]

Download it once, then copy it to cd's/DVD's.

I concur (My hosting plan thanks you for your cooperation... lol.)

[jr2]

Yeah, and if you make any serious fans out there, they can use the disks to create an iso file.  Call it "FreeSpaceSCPDVD.iso" and put it in a folder called "FreeSpaceSCPDVD".  Then, download the torrent, and tell your client to download to the parent directory of the FreeSpaceSCPDVD directory.  The client should find the existing file, check it to make sure it's the same as the one in the torrent, and then start you off at 99.9% done, with 1MB left to download. 

How's that for an idea?  If you know of anyone who has a good connection and would like to help, you can mail them the DVD when you burn it. 

I used ISO Recorder by Alex Feinman (freeware) to create the .iso. 

Just install ISO Recorder, insert FS SCP DVD into the drive, right-click on the drive in Windows Explorer, and tell it to "Create Image from CD".  Save the file with the title "FreeSpaceSCPDVD" (.iso extension is automatically appended) in a folder called "FreeSpaceSCPDVD" (or just move it to a folder with that name afterwards).

[Inquisitor]

Turey's code is openly available last I checked.

[jr2]

Turey's code is openly available last I checked.

Here:
http://www.fsoinstaller.com/files/installer/java/
(You had to go under www.fsoinstaller.com , click "Downloads", click "View other files", then click the "java/" directory.)

[chief1983]

Yeah, if you're going to modify it, I'd suggest doing it very similar to how I suggested to Turey, have an option to get all files and save them for offline mode, and then you could just distribute that on a dvd or over lan or something.  It should then just check in its directory to see if it has the files for offline install, and offer to use them or check for updated files.

[Turey]

Yeah, if you're going to modify it, I'd suggest doing it very similar to how I suggested to Turey, have an option to get all files and save them for offline mode, and then you could just distribute that on a dvd or over lan or something.  It should then just check in its directory to see if it has the files for offline install, and offer to use them or check for updated files.

I still don't see the point behind this. I did it for BtRL, but it was a bad hack.

[chief1983]

It adds versatility.  Instead of writing a separate autorun program to use on a dvd, you could use your installer and use the source files on the disc.  That would actually make your installer the only program anyone would ever need.  Not saying the other ones don't have merit, but think about it.  A cross-platform DVD installer.  You can burn it and hand to a mac, linux, or windows user.  And there'd be no downloading, unless they want to check for updates during the initial install, to save even more time getting up to date.

[jr2]

...Not to mention bandwidth.