Re: Tux Racer 0.10 Released

[Thomas Lund <tld@carlbro.dk>]

Amen to that.

Maybe we should stop this thread?

It looks like we all agree on:

We need feedback on our projects
Installation quirks must be minimized
There are several ways of installing/removing easily (RPM's, deps,
--prefix)

Best regards
Thomas

Mads Bondo Dydensborg wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 20 Mar 2000, Steve Baker wrote:
> 
> > Mads Bondo Dydensborg wrote:
> > >
> > > On Sun, 19 Mar 2000, Steve Baker wrote:
> >
> > > > > ...is two projects I have
> > > > > yet to figure out how to compile. At some points I have spend most of a
> > > > > day trying to get them to work, and have finally given up. And, as you
> > > > > state it always seems to be the support libraries that are the problem.
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> > > In my case I _do_ suspect a problem with my configuration. I have more
> > > versions of Mesa installed then I dare to count. Problem is that I have
> > > quake, quake2, quake3 and ut working (dual v2, glide, mesa3dfx), and I
> > > dare not mess to much around with mesas for fear of breaking these games.
> > > OTOH I do not want to give bug reports that I am not certain about.
> >
> > Well, it's really not fair to complain that these programs are hard to
> > install and that RPM's are some kind of answer when it's evident that your
> > machine is in something of a mess and even with RPM's there is zero chance
> > that they'd install cleanly.
> 
> You seem to have misunderstood (probably due to a bad formulation on my
> part[1]) what my intent with mentioning tux_AQFH and the others was. I was
> simply trying to support the posters story that compiling/installation/run
> problems _do_ stop people from trying things out and thereby contributing.
> 
> It was _not_ my intent to say
> 
> - that it is the authors fault
> - that it is the softwares fault
> - that the users behave correctly in these situations
> - that I feel my own behauvoir is correct
> - that I have any easy solution to this
> 
> I am sorry that I mentioned tux_aqfh in a way that made you feel I was
> complaining about tux_aqfh. It was not my intent. tux_aqfh is a game I
> really want to try out and have been frustrated with not getting to
> work. However, I only blame myself (and my configuration) for this.
> 
> In a sense the problem is actually not related to tux_aqfh at all, but
> is more related to the difficulties of maintaining libraries, etc. But I
> am (almost) only exposed to these kind of problems when I try to
> compile/install/run games. (OSS games that is - commercial games tend to
> provide the libs they need).
> 
> > > I was mostly thinking of pingus here. If I am not mistaken, Pingus relies
> > > on clanlib, that relies on hermes and a couple of other things.
> >
> > Pingus did install cleanly once I'd tracked down appropriate versions of
> > ClanLib and Hermes.  I feel that Hermes should really be a part of ClanLib
> > since I've never come across a program that used Hermes without Clanlib
> > or vice-versa.
> 
> I believe I downloaded in the range of 6 libraries, and eventually got
> missing something.h files that I simply could not resolve nor figure out
> where to get.
> > > > I don't produce RPM's and such because it's a LOT of trouble to do so - and
> > > > the Linux distro guys are good at that.  Since they make profit from doing
> > > > this, I don't feel any compunction at letting them do the work.
> > > >
> > >
> > > If I ever get Tux_AQFH going, I could probably supply you with a spec file
> > > for rh6.x that would make rpm building trivial.
> >
> > That's really not the point.  I'd still only be able to produce RPM's
> > for Intel CPU's - with all the attendant dependancies of specific glibc
> > versions...it's a lot more hassle than I need.
> 
> I could give you a spec file that would build a .src.rpm. Users could use
> this to build binary rpms for their own platform. I believe that would
> resolve most of the issues you are talking about.
> 
> > > Summary: My posting yesterday was _not_ a bug report for neither Pingus,
> > > Tux_AQFH or Tuxracer. It was simply a confirmation that "compile troubles
> > > _do_ stop people from checking things out and reduces the number of
> > > potential developers". I believe this is a more common problem than one
> > > would think, but I have no real solution to this. One thing that could
> > > help was test programs - but isn't ./configure supposed to take care of
> > > that?
> >
> > Dunno - I agree that compilation problems are likely to scare off naive
> > users - but the kind of person who might contribute seems to me to be
> > more likely to persevere at least as far as asking why it doesn't compile.
> 
> I argue that you loose some in this process. Games are about having
> fun. If I never get around to try tux_aqfh, it may not trigger me in a way
> that would otherwise have motivated me to contribute a lot of stuff.
> 
> In your case the issue seems to be that you need content developers. They
> may have an even harder time getting things to work.
> 
> I want to stress that I do agree with you that users (myself
> included) should take the trouble to make things work and give decent bug
> reports. Eventually I will.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Mads
> 
> --
> Mads Bondo Dydensborg.                               madsdyd@challenge.dk
> A series on the annoying idiosyncrasies of popular programs such as Windows,
> Word and Excel features irritating or irritated animals. Word 97 Annoyances
> sports a decidedly miffed opossum, while Windows 98 Annoyances gets a European
> common toad, covered with warts.
>                          - Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY, on O'Reilly bookcovers
> 
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