Re: Idea: a gui for automatic ./configure && make

["Jeremy C. Reed" <reed reedmedia net>]

On Tue, 20 Dec 2005, Francesco Montorsi wrote:

>    as gnome user but more generally as linux user I continuosly have to
> download source packages (I have learnt not to trust binary packages) and do
> these repetitive things:
>
> 1) open a terminal
> 2) go to the folder where my browser puts downloaded files
> 3) tar -xvzf mydownloadedfile.tar.gz
> 4) ./configure && make && sudo make install
>
> with a bit of luck everything goes well and I have the software installed.
> After doing that steps for about 1000 times, I wonder: wouldn't it
> *fantastic* to have a simple app with an icon on desktop where the user can
> drag & drop source packages and then let that little utility to decompress
> the file, run configure script and compile it ?
>
> It would be very simple: it should handle drag & drops and eventually show
> eventually the output log of the ./configure && make command if something
> goes wrong.
>
> Does anyone knows if such utility already exists ?

I have not seen any utility like this.

I don't think it is worth it since you'd end up having to recreate a 
packaging system -- complete with diffs, custom configuration args, 
installation work-arounds, et cetera as it used more wide-spread.

As a packages framework and package developer, I have seen numerous source 
downloads that install to their own desired locations, overwrite files, 
destroy configurations, have out-dated or non-standard autoconf 
./configure usage, etc.

Plus, you have to take "dependencies" in to consideration.

 Jeremy C. Reed

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