Re: Did GNOME go 1.0 too early?

[Havoc Pennington <rhp zirx pair com>]

On Thu, 4 Mar 1999, Andy Kahn wrote:
> 
> 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.

Because that's the only way to install software on those systems. That's
not the Gnome team's fault. 

>  that should have
> been taken care of with clear, concise, and simple instructions.
> 

I agree that the instructions could be better. I'd type them in right now
if I knew what they were. (I gave the Debian instructions already, those
apply to my systems. :-) For the tarballs, I can tell you (below) which to
install.

> 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.
> 

That's because Gnome has more features. It has Imlib, esound, and ORBit; 
those are the three required packages that have no KDE analogue in the
release you're talking about. (KOffice uses Mico, but AFAIK it isn't part
of the base system.)

The base Gnome system:
glib, gtk        ( == Qt)
Imlib
ORBit
esound
gnome-libs       ( == kdelibs)

Everything else is considered "applications" and is optional and 
can be installed in any order, just like KDE. AFAIK anyway.

gnome-core, control-center and gmc are especially important applications,
gnome-utils probably important too.

I think you're right that there's no documentation, that's the heart of
the problem. But we are here on the list to help.

Havoc