Hi Ales & Marvin, > > Something I have been toying (both in terms of thinking about it > > and trying it out) with is doing a binary distribution of gEDA/gaf for > > Linux (for older and current boxes).
> I understand where you are coming from. At the same time, on a more atomic= > =20 > level, this clearly a simple dependency issue as well as a statement=20 > detailing the percieved and actual abilities of users to deal with dependen= > cy=20 > issues.=20 [snip!] > Looking at the great work that Stuart Brorson is doing regarding the gEDA=20 > installation CD typifies this situation. It seems to me that the work Stuar= > t=20 > is doing should/would take care of this issue (That is, if he can get the=20 > various distro's to play nicely with his python scripts and visa-versa).=20 Hey! Thanks for the plug! Some points: *** As for a binary version, Ales & I have discussed this. I have no objection to sticking one on the CD as a kind of back-up. I prefer the "configure && make && make install" method because it creates more compact executables & configure takes care of the dependency issue -- *if* you have the proper libraries installed in the first place. If I can create some statically linked binaries, I will stick them on the CD & put a note in the README about them, so the user can install them manually. I probably won't have the install wizard deal with installing the statically linked binaries. The reasons are, first, time. Second, the install wizard is supposed to make life easy for newbies. However, if the first question the newbie is asked is "Do you want statically linked binaries?", he will become totally confused & will probably just throw the CD in the garbage and return to using Eagle. *** As for dependecies: If you don't have the proper libraries installed, then the CD will try to help you. It will install guile, pkg-config, Tcl/Tk, and one or two other things. It can install them as root, if need be (it will prompt you for a passwd). It won't install GTK, which seems to be the library most people complain about. I made the decision to not install GTK/Glib/Pango/etc. because doing so is really mucking around with your system's configuration & installing them can be kind of hairy. Therefore, it's up to the user to have a system modern enough to use the CD. (FWIW, I have placed all the GTK/GLib/etc tarballs on the next rev of the CD. The installer won't do anything about them, but the enteprising user can find them and install them manually if he wants to.) ** By the way, it is not even clear to me that real users have had problems with the CD and GTK. My suspicion is that last months tiresome flame-war about Qt vs. GTK vs. apt-get vs. pkg-get vs. whatever muddied the waters, and left some with the impression that the CD has GTK dependacy issues. Are there any real users out there who had a problem with GTK and the CD (as opposed to other dependecies)? If so, I'd like to hear the details of your experience. *** If users have dependency problems with other packages, I'd like to hear about it so I can perhaps include the package on the CD (or consciously blow it off with a reason). *** My prefered way to handle the dependency nightmare is to have a set of supported Linux distributions (and BSD and Sun, perhaps), and test the installer on these platforms. I'd include the common distros. I have posted a list previously, and others have made some suggestions & offered tips too. Outside of those distros, I'd like to just say "you're on your own", and let "./configure" sort out any problems. The problem with unix is that there is a limitless number of configurations to deal with, and my brain and my time are very limited. A correlary to the "supported platform" is to perform a rigorous smoke-test validation just before the suite is released. Ales pointed out that he has several distros available to him, and I can build several machines with other distros. The idea is to have some kind of "Linux Compatibility Labs" which can smoke-test the gEDA Suite on all the supported platforms, and then certify that it builds. The only impediment here is, again, time. *** Finally, I am interested in this comment: > =46WIW, I've used Stuarts installation CD and although it's not quite prime= > time, he is close - Real close. What is Stuart's position on this subject? My question is: What would make the CD fully prime-time? Thanks, Stuart
