Re: Installers..

[Chris <chris@starforge.co.uk>]

#07-Dec-01# Message from *Steve Baker*:
Hi Steve,

> Dunno - I'm a big fan of autoconf/automake.
> A vast percentage of source packages install that way and people are quite
> used to

>   ./configure ; make install
I'm not talking about replacing it - I'm talking about adding a layer
between the user and the scripts. It's fine /for us/, but have you ever sat 
a new linux user in front of a computer with a bunch of tarballs and told 
them that all you need to do is 

./configure
make
make install

I experienced this situation this past weekend with my brother, an 
experienced Windows user (and he built his own computer, so he's no 
technophobe - this guy fiddles registry keys without hesitation) but a 
linux newbie. The results were instructive to say the least. I'm not 
talking about replacing autoconf/automake; for actually handling the 
underlying operation it is fine, but for Harry Homeowner it is hopeless 
(quite apart from it being shell based). When things work it is not bad, 
that I'll grant, but if anything goes wrong - Harry hasn't double-checked 
his dependancies, or he doesn't know how to check that a specific package 
is installed, or he puts things on in the wrong order - it is a nightmare 
for someone who can't decypher esoteric logs. I'm talking about adding a 
layer on top: a GUI similarish to kconfigure but aimed more at the newbie. 

But if you're interested in what I'm up to, I'll post the full description.
It's a sizable read though because I wanted to explain what, how and why I'm
doing things.

Chris
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