I understand this issue and I comiserate.... Think about this though, KDE would have been much harder to write (and one hell of alot bigger most likely),, had it not used the QT libs, they conntain all the code for the GUI generating and numerous other things.. The benefits of using libs are at least two fold, if you have many apps using the same libs, they need only be loaded into memory once for all of them, which speeds things up greatly. They also provide for a more unified look between apps, (like KDE apps for example) Ditto with Gnome and its libs and nearly every other package.. If all packages had all the libs they required in them, then Mandrake would probably come on 8 CD's for just the basics and one distro would have hundreds of copies of the same libs in different RPM's... I personally think that they should offer full dependencies versions of RPM's for the newbies for download on the web... but it wouldn't be productive on the CD's to do it.. I think two other things would help,. a gui and console tool that does smart tarball installs and updates the rpm database for that app, and one that can get dependencies for you,, (goes to a mandrake update site list...etc etc. or asks for the CD, or both) preferably the same app. and a self extracting tarball, (sort of like winzips self extracting file,, a new tarball format that can have a shell or perl script wrapper around the actual tarfile that untars and starts the install for you.. (then updates the RPM databse...downloads dependencies etc etc....) even if it was 10% bigger then a standard tarball, people would go for it because of the ease of install and removal and "smart installing" features, you could even make an app that keeps a updatable database of files that have a certain extension, like .exec and it runs suid or something and makes the file executable and runs the app if its clicked, (so that newbies don't have to learn chmod straight away) it would be potentially a security risk, but if the program is smart enough, it could be capable of foreseeing possible problems and risks, and then avoiding them...and it could prompt and warn for packages not listed in its database. its no more dangerous then downloading windows setup apps.. (although thats not saying much really is it?? ) They would make a difference me thinks... and the latter one would bring us closer to the day where we are more powerful (compiling as opposed to installing binaries) and yet as easy to install... I think that would go along way to helping the newies issues.. (and sometimes the rest of us too.) Also, Mandrake should consider a Prefab lib section, (if selected during install, default would be on unless there are space issues) of as many of the common libs as possible,,, that way, even if they didn't get used, most people would be willing to put up with an extra 50 or 100MB of libs on their hard drive if it meant that 98% of lib dependencies never happend again.. This is already done to some degree, but not enough I think.. anyone with a 4 gig or above hard disk could put up with that,, (and like I said, make it install option.) just some thoughts.. rgds Frank -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Andrei Raevsky Sent: Tuesday, 18 September 2001 3:24 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [newbie] what is wrong with dependencies Frankly - I am rather frustrated with the issues of dependencies. Almost each time I try to install an rpm file, or compile a tar.gz, I get a failed/missing dependencies error. I was told that this is "just as in Windows in which programs need dlls". This is simply not true. When a Win32 developer prepares a package for publication he includes ALL the dlls needed (at least in 99% of the cases) and the install wizard then checks to see if there is a need to add them to the system or if something more recent is already installed. Now WHY don't rpms come with ALL the dependencies they need? Is it to reduce the size of the packages? But then, would it not be better to define a list of "main" dependencies which ALL distributions would install on each machine (even if the installation type is not "development")? Also - sometimes, a dependency needs another dependency. What for? If the two dependencies are developed by the same people, why don't they immediately package them together. Finally, can I get any "missing" dependency from sites such as rpmfind.net? Are all dependencies rpm-packaged. I am sorry if these questions sound silly to those of you who are "advanced newbies" (-: I'm the real "newbie-newbie" :-) but take it from a 100% committed linux-lover as I have become: this is a problem which does NOT exist in this form in the much-hated Windows world. Any explanations would be welcome, cheers! Linux user 226850 _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
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