On 07/15/2010 12:28 AM, J. Landman Gay wrote:
1.3.3 Requirements for Linux Systems
The minimal requirements for Revolution to run are:

• Linux kernel 2.4 and above
• glibc 2.2.4 and above
• X11R5 and above


Right, here comes Richmond Mathewson with his Ubuntu box . . .

Opens up 'Synaptic Package Manager' to find out if glibc 2.2.4 is installed, or, if not, whether he can install it.

He finds that there is NO mention of a package called 'glibc'; there is, paradoxically something called 'glibc-doc' which is described as the documentation for the 'Embedded GNU C library'.

So he searches for 'Embedded' and gets nix; so he tries "library" and gets nix; then he tries "libglib" and gets a whole slew of confusing tiddley-poms which make him utter unprintably coarse words.

Of course when Richmond installs other Linux software, either via apt-get through the Terminal, via Synaptic, via Ubuntu Tweak or the Ubuntu Software Center he finds that he gets little notices telling him which dependencies are required, whether they will be installed automatically, and so on.

Feature Requires
Alpha-blended window shapes A 'composited' window
manager (e.g. 'Advance Desktop
Effects' turned on in Ubuntu 7)
Complex Unicode scripts Pango
Text rendering using anti-aliased TrueType fonts Xft
Native file open and save dialogs GTK
Native print and page setup dialogs GTK
Video playback mplayer
Audio playback esd



"Witty" messages from Richmond's Terminal:

"couldn't find package pango"; because all the components for pango have 'funny' names
that, generally, involve 'pango' as part of them.

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Now, I know that I have 'glibc' and 'pango' installed; but not thanks to RunRev or its documentation; mainly because they were installed as a standard part of Ubuntu 10.04 (just spend yonks trawling
through the Ubuntu documentation).

Several .deb packages have tried to install glibc and pango again; because those .deb packages are set up by people who want their end-users to get on with using their apps without having buckets of specialist knowledge in the underpinnings of Debian-derivative distros.

When I install anything on Mac, Windows or Ubuntu I expect it to just install without my having to get in a twist and go on a wild goose chase after fiddly-little dependencies; most Linux app people seem to know that and have taken pains to ensure that when their software is installed
the number of 'nasty surprises' are minimised.

I am aware that RunRev is dependent on QuickTime on Mac and Win; something I have suggested might
be removed in future several times.
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