[Gambas-user] Re: Maybe a weird question

[Joseph Murphy]

>I really don't mean this as an insult, but I'm going to say it anyway.  
>You don't know why .so files get links with a version number and 
>you're running Slackware, the least user friendly (by design) of the 
>major Linux distributions?

>I think a lot of the end-user weaknesses you say you've found with 
>Linux to date might actually be weaknesses of Slackware, which was 
>never meant for end users.  The rest of the world has package 
>management, automatically updating app shortcut and menu systems, 
>etc.  Slackware.... has tarballs.

>If you really like the "building everything from source" thing I'd 
>suggest you at least try Gentoo, which goes halfway to package 
>management with its "portage" system while still allowing you to go 
>source-only.  I have no idea whether Gambas works on it, but I'm 
>pretty sure you'll be able to strip it down as much as you like.

Rob I find this, not to be insulting either, brain dead.  I have tried 
mandrake, redhat, suse and gentoo. The first time I tried Linux I had to 
install from a hand full of floppies.  I think RPM sucks the big one.  And 
slackware does have a package management system that is far superior then 
RPM.  They don't call it RPM Hell for no reason.  Don't believe the BS you 
read in Linux Format or any other Linux mag that says that Slackware 
doesn't have a  package management system.  It has the best package 
management system.  There are at lest three programs for automatic updating 
of slackware packages.  If you are interested go to www.linuxpackages.net 
and checkout packages for slackware. 

I find the branding that is going on with mandrake, redhat and suse very 
distasteful.  Of the distros you mentioned I liked gentoo the best but I 
wasn't happy with the way they handled run levels.  And as for mandrake, 
how  lack of functionality equates to ease of use I have no idea. I think 
mandrake is the worst of all the major distros.  But if all you can do is 
click with the mouse you can get mandrake up and running.  I think this is 
the reason that some people think slackware is not user friendly.  It 
doesn't have useless eye candy  and you might need to actually type 
something sometimes.  But as an end user system Slackware is the best.  I 
have no idea where you get the idea that it was never intended to be an end 
user system.   Don't believe the BS put out by idiots that write in 
magazines.  All they know are RPM systems.  So for them if it's not RPM it 
is too hard for them to use because they might actually have to do 
something other then click with the mouse.

You don't understand what I said about the .so files.  They are three 
different variants of zero. I don't understand why someone would have the 
exact same file linked under three different variants of zero.  The value 
of having a <name>.so.3 or <name>.so.3.1 is obvious.  But having file names 
like gb.so, gb.so.0 and gb.so.0.0.0 is brain dead. A dot zero is the same 
version as a dot zero dot zero.  I see no purpose for this at all.

The weakness of Linux is in how programmers install their programs.  Take a 
look at /usr/bin.  It has thousands of files with no order to them at all.  
Gambas dumped most of it's programs in there with names like gbx, etc.  
Take a look at a windows box in C:\windows\system and you will see 
exactly the same kind of crap.  This is because of the search path problem.  
What needs to be done is have recursive search from the PATH declaration.  
This would allow installing all program files in a more thought out 
fashion, such as /usr/bin/gambas/gbx .  If this became the standard of how 
linux used the PATH I wouldn't have two thousand plus files, most with 
meaningless names, in /usr/bin.

 You can get a recursive PATH by adding a little scripting to profile like 
this.

DIRS=( $(echo /usr/bin/*/) )
DIRS=( ${DIRS[@]%/} )
D=$( IFS=: ; echo "${DIRS[*]}" )
{provided by Chet Ramey}

You can then replace /usr/bin in the PATH declaration with $D and then when 
looking for gbx it can be found in /usr/bin/gambas.  But this is not done 
on any distro.  Then you have the problem of getting people that write 
their install scripts to put their stuff in a directory under /usr/bin.  
And while I'm ranting they can use more meaningful names then gbx.

And this is where compiling from source works nicely.  You can set prefix to 
a value such as /usr/bin/gambas and then make a package of the compiled 
code to be installed with pkgtool, slackware's package management tool.  
This is a much simpler process then making an RPM. 

Joseph