[Xastir-Dev] Re-org of file releases?

[Gerry Creager N5JXS]

I tend to agree with the basic sentiment.  We need to start producing 
snapshop .deb and .rpm on about a weekly basis...

I'll help.

Gerry

David L Norris wrote:
> Just some thoughts...
> 
> On Wed, 2002-10-30 at 15:23, Jack Twilley wrote:
> 
>>My vote is to pull the binary.  The Linux crowd should be able to
>>handle building its own binaries from scratch, and it minimizes
>>support issues tremendously.
> 
> 
> I know at least a dozen people (including hams) using Linux who haven't
> a clue how to use a terminal let alone how to use tar to extract the
> source.  I spent 5 hours the other night trying to walk someone through
> building a simple program from a source tarball; he eventually gave up. 
> People coming from DOS who do know how to use a command line often have
> so many horrible "do what I mean not do what I say" habits that it's
> hard to even explain how to type a command with parameters.  If it isn't
> RPM or DEB they are mostly lost.
> 
> And, preinstalled Linux systems such as those sold by Walmart,
> TigerDirect, etc (for ~$200) have no build environment.  It's either
> .deb, .rpm or bust unless they know how, where and which packages to
> install to get a build environment.  It seems to me like there should be
> some way to get packages out for these people.  Their vendors probably
> aren't going to help them much.
> 
> Maybe a few people running different distributions could contribute
> binary packages for official releases of XASTIR.  I know I'd be willing
> to do something like that.  Granted, this would be an extra burden. 
> And, only worthwhile if several people are willing to (reliably)
> contribute binaries of the releases.
> 
> 
>>Otherwise, you should consider making
>>.rpm's and .deb's, and madness lies down that path.
> 
> 
> I really like having the option of using RPMs.  Even when building from
> source I'll always create my own RPM when there's a spec file.  It makes
> it easy to see what's installed, where it's installed, and what it needs
> to work correctly.  And, once the RPM is built all I have to do is click
> an icon to install it on all my other machines.  I can even give it to a
> friend and not have to spend 5 hours on the phone with him.  :-)
> 
> Perhaps a compromise for RPM-based systems is to provide source RPMs via
> SourceForge.  It should be fairly simple even for newbies to build a
> source RPM.  "rpmbuild --rebuild xastir.src.rpm"  Building RPMs from the
> spec file is a slightly more involved but not complex at all; extract
> spec file, copy tarball to the RPM SOURCES directory, "rpmbuild -ba
> someprog.spec".  But, both require build environments which, these days,
> are not always installed on "default" Linux desktop systems.  Why, I
> have no clue.  But, that's the way things are going lately.
> 


-- 
Gerry Creager -- gerry.creager at tamu.edu
Network Engineering, Academy for Advanced Telecommunications
Texas A&M University, College Station, TX
Office: 979.458.4020 FAX: 979.847.8578 Cell: 979.229.5301
Page: 979.228.0173 -or- gcreager at my2way.com