![]() This is essentially what happens though, and it works quite well… until you find out that you cannot just execute a shell script by clicking on it on every system. For example, the paths cannot be hard wired because we just don’t know where the QuickSupport will be extracted. In reality, the shell script is a bit more complex. image.jpg) by clicking on it, or if you run a shell script (myjob.sh) the system takes a look at the file and opens it with the appropriate program. You probably know what happens if you open a file (e.g. What follows is a lot of boring, tedious, and occasionally frustrating work, but I’ll spare you all the gory details. For the most part, it is simple, unless of course you want to be sure that the package works on 99% of the machines out there in the wild. This increases the download size, but other than that, it sounds pretty simple. If a library is missing, it’ll be installed.įor QuickSupport, this obviously does not work. If you install an application on your Linux box, the package manager will make sure all dependencies are satisfied. This is essentially true for all operating systems, but due to the flexibility and variety of Linux distributions, you can’t merely assume the existence of the libraries you need. A library is a file that provides functionality such as networking, encryption, or graphics algorithms used by various computer programs. ![]() On every Linux box, there are plenty of libraries present. If users don’t know about it, explaining it on the phone should be feasible. Chances are, the user already knows to just (right) click the file and “extract here.” Luckily, this feature exists in almost all desktop environments for Linux. However, he or she probably knows what to do with a tar.gz file. A normal user does not even need to know what that means. Of course, we could also create some teamviewer_qs.sh file and add a note “make executable after download,” but most users are much more familiar with extracting a file than with making it executable. You’ll get a folder containing a teamviewer binary that you can execute by clicking on it. After downloading the teamviewer_qs.tar.gz archive file, it has to be extracted. Usually this is a good thing as it prevents accidental execution of files you really don’t want to execute, like the infamous “” scams that users of other systems often fear.įor QuickSupport on Linux, this necessitates an extra step. With Linux, you generally cannot just download a file and execute it by (double) clicking on it. having them install foo2:i386, barlib, baz-11, and XYZ_server:i386Ĭhances are that either the supporter or the one in need of support has a nervous breakdown during the process – or they simply give up.describing how to obtain root permissions (ouch!).having them check for the existence of half-a-dozen libraries.explaining how to make a file executable.deliberating with the customer to determine which download to pick (depending on their Linux flavor and architecture).Be that as it may, there are a few things you definitely don’t want in a “quick support’.” I’ll explain why later, but it has to be a bigger download than the ordinary package. Support me quickly, please!Īdmittedly, the QuickSupport package is a little bit bigger than the term “quick” might initially imply. Some of the paths we had to take may seem obvious, but I think some are not. ![]() Well… I admit, this wasn’t exactly how that talk went, but it makes a good and dramatic introduction, something along the lines of, “‘Scotty, how long will it take to fix the warp drive?’ ‘Four days at least!’ ‘We have four hours to escape this anomaly!’ ‘Okay then, I’ll do it in two!’”įrankly, creating QuickSupport for Linux was quite different from “just adding some features to the package” and definitely not as straight forward as it has been on other platforms. One day in 2013, my manager walked up to me and said,“For TeamViewer 9, we’ll introduce TeamViewer QuickSupport for Linux.” To which I replied, “Well, I’m not so sure that’s even possible.” “But… we need it!” “Okay then, let’s do it!”
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