Packing (was Re: SEUL: Common SEUL/e-linux tools needed)

["Erez Nir" <erez-n@actcom.co.il>]

Loren S Osborn <lso8219@cs.rit.edu>
>So you think packages that use non-essential packages like xforms, Qt,
>GTK, povray, pstools, etc. should lug them all around with them...???


Yes... Like so many Windoze programs carry with them MFC dlls(see also end
arguments)

>I don't see what's wron with popping up a dialog that says:
>
> The foo program requires that you have the following
> programs installed:
> a-bar
> b-bar
> and a newer version of:
> c-bar
> You may...
>
> <Search for packages locally> <Download them> <Cancel>


You are making an assumption that the user can connect to the download
source easly.

>> As for compatibility, With existing package formats, I also believe there
>> are allready too many formats. Maybe the best choise will be to make the
>> 'installation wizard' use actual files in tar.gz format.(which as far as
I
>> know is the only format not flavor dependent in Linux) thus an advanced
user
>> may choose to open and install the package manually.

what I ment is that like many InstallShield apps have the following
components:
Setup.exe ,setup.dll_ setup.ins,setup.pkg .......etc for the install wizard
and install script, and a data.z file for actual data we can use a plain
.tar.gz for the actual data,thus a "smart" user can open them independent of
the install procedure.

>*THIS* is the whole *REASON* for dependencies... they tell you what's wrong
>and how to fix them... just because RPM's GUI sucks, doesn't mean that it
>*HAS TO*...
>

[--- a story to prove the point ---]
    I once downloaded a package called great_app.rpm happily after, i
disconnected from my ISP. then I ran niftyrpm --install great_app.rpm. The
GUI told me that I should download the packages gui_lib.0.1.rpm and
other_lib.rpm and suggested to make a connection and do exactly
that.Unforuntely it tried to connect to ftp.somewhere.com but the default
place for the package has moved since only yesterday there was a release of
gui_lib.0.2.rpm so I had to manually locate gui_lib.
      Since I am a GUI programmer, I decided I rather download and compile
gui_lib myself. I downloaded gui_lib_src.0.1.tar.gz and succesfully compiled
and installed it. To my great luck other_lib.rpm was easy to locate and
install.
    Jolly me disconnected from my ISP again.I ran niftyrpm --install
great_app.rpm only to found out that niftyrpm cannot recognize I have
manually installed gui_lib.
    I spent two days installing great_app, only to find out that It is
really in chinese. desprate I turned to the readme file that suggested
downloading english_fonts.rpm from ftp.somewhere.com.
    God I wish it all came in a single package who cares how much time it
takes to download.
[--- end of story ---]

OK now for the closing statements.( SEUL people might want to ignore )

    The KDE project and the GNOME project apart from trying to provide
commercial look and feel frontends for major applications are trying to
provide a common desktop environment.Thus I believe there is very little use
for xforms  and GTK based application in a KDE environment.(This will become
more evident when drag and drop will be implemented)
    If you go for this philosophy for KDE (based on the project's charter)
and I think e-linux as "the kde distribution" should, xforms/GTK based apps
should be distributed only when there is no Qt/KDE equivalent and maybe even
staticlly linked.
    This way Qt and KDElibs will be like MFC libs of the windows world.

Erez Nir
erez-n@actcom.co.il