[SPAM] Re: [Newbies] Beginner's List Question

[Phil (list)]

On Wed, 2015-01-28 at 09:56 +0100, Mateusz Grotek wrote:
> Dear Squeakers,
> As a long term Linux user let me add a couple of remarks to the  
> discussion.
> 
> "The Linux way of doing
> things focuses on the super old school UNIX mentality that the person  
> using
> the system knows what they're doing better than any program or developer
> can guess, and so the power, and responsibility, is in your hands."
> 
> This do not apply to e.g. Ubuntu.
> 

The parent doesn't apply to any of the major distros targeting end users
AFAICT (Debian, Ubuntu, Red Hat, etc.)  Sure for things like Arch or
Slackware you're on your own, but if you're on one of those you already
knew that.

> "How do I get <insert_program_name_here> to run?"
> isn't really a question for the squeak community if you're on a Linux
> machine."
> 
> IMHO there are two separate questions to address:
> 1. "How do I get Squeak to run on Linux?"
> 2. "How do I get Squeak to run on <put here any Linux distro>?"
> The Squeak community should address only the first question and it  
> should do it with the One-Click Image. If there are any Linux users  
> around, who want to maintain packages in some distros, let them do it,  
> and help them with that. Then you can link to their work, when the  
> question concerning a particular distro arrives. Some links for  
> potential maintainers:
> https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/developers-reference/new-maintainer.html
> https://help.launchpad.net/Packaging/PPA
> http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/handbook/handbook.xml?part=1&chap=2
> 

Agreed.  Addressing 1 should address 2 in the general case.  Again, if
you're off in the wilderness you're on your own, but you already knew
that.

However, as a Debian user myself, I'd actually prefer it if most of the
more substantial user facing programs such as Squeak didn't waste time
packaging for Debian: these packages are so hopelessly out of date that
they create more problems than they solve.  If the distro version is
more than a couple of months behind the current release, it would seem
to be a better and more supportable solution to point people to the one
click.  Should they grow beyond that, presumably they'll also learn
about alternate downloads and building from source down the line.


> "In order to support a Linux distribution you need to compile the VM  
> against the library versions that the distribution uses."
> 
> Well, it is desirable, but not strictly necessary.
> 

I would say that is *only* desirable for packages that are maintained in
distro repositories.  For separately downloadable Linux packages (i.e.
things like one click), static linking results in them behaving largely
like a Windows or OS X app: it just works works without a bunch of
unsatisfiable .so issues.