-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Ian,
Thank you so much for that fine missive. It made so much more sense. Considering that I am getting into C programming the discussion on header files makes sense to me. I did a package selection during install on this machine as I don't have a lot of space. It is very likely that I did not install the devel stuff that you are talking about. It's really a misnomer when you think of it. I interpret devel as development tools not something that will aid me compile new software into my existing system. Does that make sense? I think I have to shift my idea of this development paradigm now that I am working more in Linux. The reality is that in order to fully take advantage of the power of the OS, I will need things such as those devel tools/libraries/header files. At any rate I wanted you to know that I wasn't brushing what you said before aside. I just didn't understand enough of it to work with it. Thank-you. Jarrod On Friday 31 January 2003 11:00 pm, you wrote: > Jarrod, > > (pre-p.s. Following is a long email that describes in more detail what I > was talking about in my last email, but is now just "interesting and > hopefully useful" information, since you have already found a program > that does what you need. At any rate, maybe this will come in handy in > the future, for you or for someone else on the list) > > I probably didn't explain it very well in my last email. It's not that > the -devel RPM is actual software in the sense that it's something you > run, it's mostly just header files that are needed by other programs to > compile (and man pages to describe the available functions, and > sometimes some software, but not something you need to run, but rather > things that get used at compile time). In order to compile something, > you need to make available to it the headers of all the software that it > depends on, which is what the -devel RPM provides. > > When you compile a C program, if it depends on functions contained in > another piece of software (a graphical program will depend on X > libraries), it needs to be able to reference those functions at compile > time to be sure that the software that is being compiled is written > correctly (that function calls contain the correct number and type of > parameters, for example). That's what the header files (.h) are for. > They describe to the compiler all the functions in a corresponding > library (that's a bit simplistic, but it'll do for now). > > Part of the configure script's job is to check your system and make sure > that the .h files it needs are there, so that once it gets to the > compile part, the compiler will be able to reference them. All the > "checking for foo" lines that the configure script spits out correspond > to checks for header files for the particular "foo" that it's talking > about (again, simplistic, more can happen, but we'll stick with that for > now). So when your configure bombed out saying it couldn't find the X > libraries, it wasn't that it was telling you X wasn't installed, but > rather the extra stuff needed to compile programs that depend on X > weren't there. > > Now, this extra stuff isn't needed to actually run X, just to compile > stuff for X. It is generally separated out into a different RPM so that > a user who doesn't compile stuff doesn't have this extra goo filling up > their hard drive. During the install of a distro, there is usually a > group of packages for development. Selecting that will install the > -devel RPMs (well, maybe not all of them, but some of the more important > ones like X, and KDE and/or GNOME if you installed those too). If you > didn't select it during the original install, it's probably not there. > > Well, this email got longer than I expected it to. I hope it's useful > anyway. > > Ian > > On Fri, 2003-01-31 at 19:57, Jarrod Major wrote: > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > > Hash: SHA1 > > > > Hey Ian, > > > > This sounds like reasonable advice. It doesn't fit this particular > > problem however, as it's not complaining about missing software, rather > > it was looking for X libraries. > > > > At any rate, the kcharselect was what I was after I guess. > > > > Thanks. > > > > Jarrod - -- Jarrod Major GPG Fingerprint: FA4A 1EA3 A0EE A842 07BB 804C 0090 14F6 BE6E DE3D CLUG Treasurer Registered Linux User: #224211 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (GNU/Linux) iQCVAwUBPjtqNwCQFPa+bt49AQJNnAP9GS2RtiLTZK/8csPit6pMRt1vvPxO8bpb Y6wMBZTaHb40c42hk25U4rsJXC+oYiyDOZUh/Boq8WsKm4JXsmIr6Y8/gLP31Mn4 BcxyrX7gCSWQG9Is4QHyKxqjFSaKGtDunKIDEoYwENSvkmg1jker+AN51Jb5VdyZ Yir51pmW1hQ= =E2yg -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
