Re: why is gtk install so difficult?

[Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com>]

On Mon, 2003-10-13 at 13:59, kameron cole wrote:

> Consider the JDK...also, like the GTK, a "toolkit", which, ostensibly,
> contains all the "tools" you'll need to start developing Java/Gnome
> apps; and that is the goal, after all, isn't it? - to get developers
> right to the task of developing.  The goal really isn't to instruct
> them, through trial-by-fire, in the ins and outs of software
> installation.
> 
> At first, the jdk install was troublesome.  But, nowadays, it's just
> download, run their installer (regardless of the platform), set you PATH
> (if you feel like it, for convenience), and there you go...start
> programming in Java.
> 
> I'd like that to be available for the GTK, as well.  Of course, the main
> problem is freedom - freedom to configure my personal set up like I
> want. And, no unessecary libraries - if i already have glib at the right
> level, i don't want some other installation to install it again, over my
> existing installation.  This is a good thing - to the extent that it is
> managable.

You didn't install the JDK from source. But you are comparing that
to a from-scratch source install of GTK+. 

Generally, most people find the appropriate packages for their Linux
distribution, and install them; a process that takes at most 5 minutes.
They may even have the GTK+ development environment already installed.

I'm not saying that GTK+ installation is as easy as it should be.
The two things I'd like to see in the future:

 - To have, in the GTK+ release announcements, information about
   obtaining binary packages for various operating systems.

 - Some sort of standard build script to allow building GTK+
   and all dependencies into a self-contained prefix.

But if you want "freedom" to install things with your own configure
options, if you want to install in a fashion integrated with the
rest of the system, that is inevitably going to involve quite
a learning curve.

Regards,
					Owen