On Mon, 15 Aug 2005 16:33:29 +1200 Roger Searle wrote: > Hi Nick, while I'm not looking for bleeding edge, i'm not satisfied with > staying several versions behind or doing a basic install and sticking > with that. > > While I could easily download and install the newest version of suse or > try something new with no assistance, there's no challenge in that at > all and is almost trivial. All my roads on the "learning linux journey" > seem to all be leading towards coming to terms with compiling/installing > kernels/drivers/apps that don't come in nice packages that are managed > in a gui.
You may be ready for gentoo :-) In point of fact even gentoo does hide much of the nastiness of compilation and installation. Sure you do compile stuff, but after you have set various flags and options, the portage system configures and compiles the software. You never have to type "make" or "./configure --include-option1 --without--option2 --option3libs=/usr/obscure/patth/set/by/distro/maintainer --obscure_option_i_do_not_understand=true" > I'm over my command line barrier and ready for more of the > power it offers. Interesting contradiction on this forum sometimes - > "use the command line" - "don't use the command line". I didn't mention the command line actually! I said stick with packages from your distro :-) That is because i thought your aim was to have kde-3.4 installed on your system. If the aim is to learn how to compile kde-3.4 then thats an admirable goal. However there is no way that anyone could compile kde on the sort of hardware that is likely to be available in the scope of a linux group meeting, and besides that it is a pretty boring screenshow to type make and then watch it compile. kde is a pretty complicated build AFAIK and time consuming too. It is written in c++ which takes agaes to compile, ie 100 lines of c++ will take lonnger to compile than 100 lines of c - please i'm not starting a language war here. Having said that I accept that a lesson in compiling and installing would be a good topic, just not the whole of kde thanks! One problem of course is that while most compiles are similar, they all have their quirks and differences, so showing you how to compile foo doesn't teach you about the foibles of bar's dependencies :-) I'd be happy to try and find a representative package, and compile and install it for a meeting. Can anyone think of a suitable package? I have compiled postfix a couple of times, it doesn't take too long. > > So thanks for the opinion and I understand the value of the suggestion, > but I'm looking for something more and will take what ever is on offer > at these talks. > > Roger > > > > > Nick Rout wrote: > > >On Mon, 15 Aug 2005 16:04:09 +1200 > >Roger Searle wrote: -- Nick Rout <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
