On Tue, Feb 01, 2005 at 10:44:09AM -0500, John Johnson wrote: > I just don't understand why it (software installation) can't be as easy as it > is on a Mac. On a Mac, in most cases, installing software consists of > dragging the application from the file you downloaded into the Applications > folder. That's it. >
The "Mac" is a vastly more limited set of hardware platforms and software platform configurations. Linux tools are built from a vast array of contributed dependencies, and have to run on an immense number of different configurations, both of hardware and of systems. This makes the linux problem a lot harder, and it doesn't help that the people doing the installers are almost always volunteers (thought that is of course also true for some software on the Mac and PC.) Even wintel has an easier time than linux because the OS is controlled by one company, though it has the same or more hardware variety. The Mac gets that (clearly desirable) drag and install at a very high price. And even so, a lot of linux tools not only can one click install these days, they can do it along with sucking in a dozen dependencies, too.
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