First impressions

General Questions/Discussions
1

Hi,
Here is my short experience with installation of UML, community edition on Linux box.

Step 1:
I downloaded what seems to be the only version of installer available - enterprise - even though I expected to be able to choose community edition.

Step 2:
I started installer and it asked to install a bunch of products/options trying to confuse me…
Well, been there - I selected most reasonable options (community edition + Eclipse + DB) and ended up having to enter a location of eclipse… 2 times! Ok, I selected “get from internet” and expected that it’d get one copy and use it. Not so, it actually started to download 2 exact same copies, each over 90mb. Ok, waited long and done it … only to find out that there are other errors including an option to set links … in /usr/bin ??? I AM A USER, not ROOT on this system, come on! I would not expect root to be an installer user.
Abandoned this installation altogether

Still want to try - cannot resist the urge, so:

Step 3:
I started as ROOT (!!! big mistake, I know, but I want to get started somehow anyway), asked to install ONLY UML (just one checkbox), installed Community edition (do not want to mess up with the trial versions and such)… and found out that I do not see ANY runnable links to any part of the installed program .
???

Ok, been there too, so:

Step 4:
Looked into the dir structure and found out there are some launcher scripts (well, they ARE EXECUTALBE, good enough) and launched what seemed to be the regular, bare bone version: run_vpuml. And IT started ! Well, I though, I can now enjoy the world of UML.
…
Not so fast.
It asked for the key. Been there too. Looked at e-mail guess what - key is there… for the trial version of Enterprise ???
How come? I have not asked for that.
Anyway, better have it than not, so used the key - worked! Fine!

Step 5:
Still being a bit concerned about 1 month trial and wanting to have a good promised Community edition for life (?, who knows) I clicked here and there and guess what - it actually opened a site page with the way to get a key. Followed all instructions (logged onto, …) and… still waiting for the key to arrive to my mail box.

Ouch!..
So much for starters.

Ok guys, I am not really a whiner and really hate to complain, but this time I cannot give more than 3 out of 5 for the initial experience with the product. And all I wanted is to get familiar with the best product out there! I hope you will take into account my experience and make it a bit easier for the new user to start. Or you will get bunch of people turned away just because of these blemishes.
Well, not me.
And I am really hoping to get my issue with installation resolved, so:

  1. Can I get a REAL Community Edition key (not limited trial version) ?

Well, this is all I want for now.

Thanks,

Nikolay
EQO Communications
Vancouver

P.S. Sorry for any misspells or grammar

2

Ok, I got my key - arrived to the mail box 4 hours later.

Thanks to everybody.

Nik

3

Hi nkarasev,

Thank you for your post. We will go through your steps and see if anything we can do to improve the whole process (from download to install).

Best regards,
Jick

4

Hi nkarasev,

We just went through your steps and have some opinion about your experience.

Step 1:
The installer is not bounded to a particular edition. You can select the edition during installation.

Step 2:
I guess you thought that you were downloading VP-UML before download, so the listed products showed in the installer confused you. To solve this problem, we decide to add a statement in the download page to inform users that they are attemping to download VP Suite, which includes VP-UML, SDE, DBVA, bla bla bla…

Well, been there - I selected most reasonable options (community edition

  • Eclipse + DB) and ended up having to enter a location of eclipse… 2
    times!

Yes. This is because SDE for Eclipse and DBVA for Eclipse are two products, and are not allowed to install on the same Eclipse folder. For evaluation, we suggest you try the Enterprise Edition of SDE for Eclipse, because it includes the features supported by DBVA for Eclipse (You can think in a way that DBVA for Eclipse is a subset of SDE Enterprise Edition for Eclipse)

Ok, I selected “get from internet” and expected that it’d get one copy and > use it.

Actually only one copy is being downloaded. I just asked our developers to remove the redundant progress bar. Sorry for causing you any inconveniences.

Ok, waited long and done it … only to find out that there are other errors
including an option to set links … in /usr/bin ???

Please select a valid installation folder during installation. I captured a screenshot to show you what I mean.

Step 3:

and found out that I do not see ANY runnable links to any part of the
installed program .

Shortcuts should be created in desktop. Do you see the shortcuts? If not, please can start by running the launchers inside the vpsuite folder.

Step 4:

It asked for the key. Been there too. Looked at e-mail guess what - key
is there… for the trial version of Enterprise ???

Do not worry, although it is an Enterprise Edition key, it lets you use all the editions below.

Best regards,
Jick

installation.jpg

5

Hi Jick

Thanks for the kind response.
I realize I am a bit late to read the message ;(

Anyway, all in all I am starting to belive in the product. Having installed it a few more times (including the “Without Installer” download) I am enjoying the product itself.

Ok, backing off a bit I have to say that installation part is still not exactly seamless experience for somebody who is using it for the first tmie. For example, when I got the “No Installer” version I expected it to be a standard “just-unpack-and-use” version which is common in open source (remember - I am using Linux OS). It was not the case though - I still had to figure out and run the installation script. Without running a script nothing would work and would not even tell me what’s wrong - any script simply ended with no message.
So I believe you should spell a few notes to the user before the installation or even before the download. I don’t kno whow things work for Windows installer - maybe there everything is in order - but the Linux part is certainly not quite done.

The directory /usr/local (I think this is where it asked me to install it) is usually protected from the regular (desktop) user. I agree that this is the “standard” installation path for any user added application, but the installator user must be root. This is the “old good unix” feature and to my opinion is not quite modern anymore. The Desktop shortcusts were not working - they pointed to the void (because of insufficient permissions to install in /usr/local) I would suggest considering to go RPM or DEB packages for linux systems. But I do realize this may be an overkill.
Maybe you should just make a few more notes before the installation and everybody will be happy…

I have also tried to “fix” the JAVA_HOME location for the “Installable version” but after editing the script it failed to start - zip reported corrupt archive. I am wondering if it is unpractical to have the “java home setup” feature bound directly to the script. I would rather use it as an option on command line.

Still like I said, after figuring out how to get this working - the product itself pleased me. No complaints there!

Thanks,
Nikolay

6

Hi Nikolay,

Frankly I am not an expert in Linux, I will forward your comment to our developers. By the way, by reading your original comment our team is now updating the download page, to indicate that what user will download is an application suite, and what they need to do in order to install the tool from the suite.

Best regards,
Jick

7

Jick,

I am not an expert in Linux too :slight_smile: I just happened to be a happy user

I do not think there are may users who will use Linux with this tool, but the number will be growing. Here are my quick notes (but you should consult pros). Unless you plan to use RPM/DEB like packages for installation, you should not count on installing the product into /usr/local directory if the installer is not a root user. The installation in this case should go to user’s home directory. Of course this means that it is likely that the product in this case will be used solely by this user. If you want all users of this syste to be able to use product - need to be root to install one into /usr/local. Being a root the install program can ask the user to create shortcuts for all or selected users in their desktops. Or another option - by running the tool for the first time by every user the shortcuts can be created at that time for that user, just like it asks for the default workspace (and the toold does this right).
If you plan to do REAL installation for modern Linux’es, then you should go RPM/DEB packages or whatever other packages are. This is similar to windows registry installations. To my understanding it takes some professional job to do the packages the right way especially given the fact that there are all too many different OS versions to support and EACH requires its own package. This is a lot of work and I cannot tell if this is worth for this product, but give it a thought.

I hope it helps.

Thanks,
Nikolay

8

Thanks Nikolay, I will certainly let our developers know about your opinion :smiley: :smiley: