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I'm running a business where we are creating email stationeries for people. We have some Mac users that currently have to download a zip file and manually copy that to their mail stationeries directory.

I want to automate that process and allow Mac users to download directly a package that will copy those files automatically.

I've build a sample package with PackageMaker, created script that will replace Archive.pax.gz with client's stationeries but go an error. I have realized I did not provide a mandatory BOM file. How can I create it on a non-mac platform? Or if I can't, is there any other way to create a Mac installer on a non-mac platform?

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4 Answers 4

It is now possible to create BOM (bill-of-materials) files on linux. Someone created an open-source version of mkbom at:

http://hogliux.github.io/bomutils

The website also has an easy to follow step-by-step tutorial on creating a Mac OS X installer on Linux ( http://hogliux.github.io/bomutils/tutorial.html ).

My company regularly build Mac OS X installers on linux with this method and so far we haven't had any major problems.

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Either you can find a package of this utility for your Linux: http://www.unix.com/man-page/All/8/mkbom/ or you can try to write it yourself, given the information available at Apple's website on BOM.

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I created some code which can list a BOM from Linux. Needs some more work to actually write a BOM.

https://cauldrondevelopment.com/svn/osxbom/trunk

The BOM format is not at all intuitive. Really nasty actually. If you take a look at my code you can get an idea of the format. I noticed that GNUStep did away with the NEXTStep BOM format which is presumably where Apple got it.

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up vote 0 down vote accepted

Finally I've created a postflight hook that is doing all the installation process

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