Though I have been using single folder installations on most of my boxes, I came to test the installer on both Windows (Vista, 7, 10) and Linux.
The advantage of the installer is obvious: You have one Ryzom client binaries and data collection, but may run different player characters (profiles) with their own client.cfg file and save folder or even servers (Yubo server for Ryzom Forge testers), with some additional complexity even dev client and live client in one installation, reducing disk space and maintenance issues.
The disadvantage so far is that Ryzom cannot be run from other than the hardcoded paths which are $HOME/.local/share/Ryzom under Linux, and und Windows, even worse, c:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Ryzom for the binaries/data part and c:\Users\<username>\Roaming\Ryzom for the profiles part. Under Mac, everything is somewhere else (please someone fill in), but as far as I know, in one directory as under Linux (not sure about).
It should not be too hard to make the installer install the client elsewhere, e.g. on an external disk. The default installation path could remain the same with the possibility to choose alternative installation paths in the Preferences choice of the installer. For Linux, this would mean a $ALTERNATE_PATH/.local/Ryzom to house the whole installation, for Windows (probably not XP) a $ALTERNATE_PATH\AppData\Local\Ryzom and ..\Roaming\Ryzom, for Mac I do not know whether Apple allows such changes, but probably yes.
The advantage of the installer is obvious: You have one Ryzom client binaries and data collection, but may run different player characters (profiles) with their own client.cfg file and save folder or even servers (Yubo server for Ryzom Forge testers), with some additional complexity even dev client and live client in one installation, reducing disk space and maintenance issues.
The disadvantage so far is that Ryzom cannot be run from other than the hardcoded paths which are $HOME/.local/share/Ryzom under Linux, and und Windows, even worse, c:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Ryzom for the binaries/data part and c:\Users\<username>\Roaming\Ryzom for the profiles part. Under Mac, everything is somewhere else (please someone fill in), but as far as I know, in one directory as under Linux (not sure about).
It should not be too hard to make the installer install the client elsewhere, e.g. on an external disk. The default installation path could remain the same with the possibility to choose alternative installation paths in the Preferences choice of the installer. For Linux, this would mean a $ALTERNATE_PATH/.local/Ryzom to house the whole installation, for Windows (probably not XP) a $ALTERNATE_PATH\AppData\Local\Ryzom and ..\Roaming\Ryzom, for Mac I do not know whether Apple allows such changes, but probably yes.
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