Re: Did GNOME go 1.0 too early?

[Andy Kahn <kahn zk3 dec com>]

On Wed, Mar 03, 1999 at 11:47:31PM -0500, Havoc Pennington wrote:
> On Wed, 3 Mar 1999, Andy Kahn wrote:
> > that's 39 separate files.  who on EARTH (especially those non-technical
> > users) want to go about installing 39 separate files?  (i'm not going
> > to go into how complicated the installation instructions are from the
> > "old" getting started guide...)
> 
> They aren't supposed to, they are supposed to install the packages that
> come with their distribution. With Debian you can literally just type:

well, from what i understand, GNOME is **not** supposed to be
limited to just Linux.  with that in mind, any non-Linux type
of Unix will have to install from the tar sources.  one of my
systems fall under this category, and i really see no reason
why i have to go and figure out which files i need, which order
to compile them, and then which to install.  that should have
been taken care of with clear, concise, and simple instructions.


> Anyway, you aren't wrong that the web site instructions could be improved,
> but I don't think the number of files is a valid criticism; it just
> reflects the number of applications and features Gnome has.

it may not be the actual number of files that's the problem, but
rather, the way they are organized.  for example, i really liked KDE's
tar packages: there's the support package, which must go first, then
the libs package, which must go next.  after that, everything else can
be installed in any order.  GNOME however, doesn't have such a clear
road to a successful and painless install.  one has to get a dozen or
so tar packages, determine the order, etc etc etc.

so until the whole Unix world goes with a popular Linux distribution
that has a package manager, or unless GNOME releases start providing
precompiled packages for each popular Unix (e.g., Solaris uses
'pkgadd', Irix uses 'inst', Digital Unix uses 'setld', etc.), the
tar ball installation from source just doesn't work.
--andy