What’s the best way to distribute a binary applica

Question

I just finished porting an application from Windows into Linux.
I have to create an installer of the application.
The application is not open source => I should distribute the application's binaries (executable file, couple .so files, help files and images).

I found several methods to do it:
- RPM and DEB packages;
- installer in .sh files;
- Autopackage.

I don't like first method (RPM and DEB packages) because I don't want to mantain different packages for different Linux distros.

What is the best way to distribute a binary application for Linux?

Answer 1

I've also looked into this at work and I'd have to agree there really isn't a "best way". If your application is being distributed as source then I'd go with the make/configure methods packaged up in a tar.gz. That seems fairly universal in the Linux world.

A good way to get an idea of what to do is to look at larger organziation and see how they distribute their binaries.

Answer 2

There is no best way (universally speaking). tar.gz the binaries, that should work.