Re: [Evolution] downloads page

[Pete Biggs <pete biggs org uk>]

> Many projects have a download page, for example;  

So does Evo:

 https://projects.gnome.org/evolution/download.shtml

but presumably what you are getting at is that Evolution doesn't provide
binary packages.  In fact if you look at other Gnome projects, very few
provide binaries, some have better pages than Evo, but virtually all the
major projects have a "Download" link that says "it should be part of
your distro, but here's the source if you want it".

> If i wasn't using Ubuntu would my only option for getting Evolution
> outside of my repos mean i would have to compile Evo from source?? 

Largely, yes.  All that using a "PPA" (or some other 3rd party repo)
means is that someone else has done that compilation for you.  In fact
using a distro's repo just means that the distro maintainers have done
the compilation on your behalf.  You can compile the whole of your
distro from source if you wish - it's not a trivial process, but for
some distros it is the default, preferred way of doing things.

Evolution depends a great deal on Gnome libraries, and, to a greater or
lesser extent, the version of the Gnome libraries should match the
version of Evolution you are compiling.  For instance Evo version 3.8.x
won't link against Gnome 3.2.x.  As such, in order to compile Evolution
for an older distro, then you also need to compile a number of Gnome
libraries as well.

>  If so would i have to do that for each different machine in my
> company?? 

You can set up your own local repository with, package up Evo in to
whatever format your distro can cope with and distribute it to your
local machines that way.

You may need to compile it for each different type of machine (distro
version, architecture, etc.), but the number of different versions you
will need will depend on the variety of different setups.

Without some method of distribution of the compiled code, then yes, you
would have to compile it on every machine.


>  If i then upgraded my OSes then would i have to recompile again?  
It depends on what the upgrade was, but probably yes: unless the
compilation you did for the previous version of the OS was statically
linked it would have pulled in some libraries native to that version of
the OS, changing the library versions may cause problems.

P.