> That's my one pet peeve about Linux. You go looking for a program to > do what you want and find out it is two years old and requires > libraries that have been updated 4 times since then. Sometimes trying > to find the older libraries is a real challenge. I would love it if > everyone would store the libraries and programs necessary to install a > program right with the program. > Jim WA0LYK
That was my pet peeve as well! I went through over a dozen distros before I got to Puppy Linux. The folks responsible for it are really good about making what they call "dotpups" which are a complete application ready to install. You just click on the downloaded dotpup and it automatically sets everything up. Occasionally your app will require something key like Java or tcl/tk and that will have to be loaded first -- but even then it is almost always available as a dotpup either on the official site or on a server one of the affiliated folks hosts. They did go through a change of Linux kernels a while back and that introduced some transition of lots of apps but other than that things have gone pretty smoothly -- the app is now much more user friendly than the big ones. I have tried Debian and the many variants and spent hundreds of hours chasing dependencies, it takes a better code-hound than I to get it running and to add in apps. RedHat and SuSE drove me nuts with code-bloat and dependency nightmares. Stormix and a couple others went out of business. Puppy is designed as a not-for-profit enterprise so there is not bloated staff and corporate infrastructure to support. Users not stockholders drive the distro. IMHO, YMMV ... -- Thanks! & 73, doc, KD4E ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Projects: http://ham-macguyver.bibleseven.com Personal: http://bibleseven.com Note: Both down temporarily due to server change. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
