[Gambas-user] Idea - Builds & Package Creation

[Benoit Minisini]

On Saturday 03 December 2005 13:38, Marius Mauch wrote:
> Felice Cafarelli wrote:
> > Why not include in the build process and package creation an option to
> > include the gb runtime library, so users does not have to download
> > additional packages to run programs build with Gambas?
>
> Because it's a bad idea to repeat Windows mistakes. Linux systems have a
> proper package management system, so there is no need for stupid
> workarounds.
>
> Marius
>

Maybe this is not a polite answer, but mainly it is the right one :-)

On Linux, program installation is usually managed and centralized by a package 
system.

This system has the following avantages:
* Less things to install, as everything is shared.
* Fixing a bug or a security problem in a library fixes all the programs that 
use them.
* You don't have to search on the internet to install most of the programs you 
need.
* You can install and automatically configure thousands of machines in one 
shot.
* ...

So making standalone programs is highly inadvisable.

Making a standalone package of a Gambas program is possible, but more 
difficult than you think. There is not just a 'gambas runtime'. There are 
many components too, that depend themselves on many many libraries.

For example, if you make a gambas 1.0 program that needs the gb.sdl component, 
you will get these dependencies:

my program --> gambas runtime & gb.sdl
gambas runtime --> libc, libm, ...
gb.sdl --> libSDL, libSDL_mixer, libvorbis, libogg, libsmpeg... 

And these libraries will depend on other ones, and so on.

Moreover, theses dependencies are not the same on all Linux systems, and on 
other Unix systems too.

But, when you make a package of your project with the IDE, you get a package 
that depends on *gambas* packages only.

And the job of distribution maintainer is to make these gambas packages for 
you, with all the needed dependencies on the other packages including the 
needed libraries.

The problem now is that not all distributions have correct gambas packages at 
the moment :-(

You must understand that one of the main goal was to have a secure system. 
*Very* different from the Microsoft point of view :-)

But you have standalone installation systems on Linux if you like: for 
example, the 'klik' system (http://klik.atekon.de).

I hope things are more clear for you now.

Regards,

-- 
Benoit Minisini