From: goer@ellis.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz) Subject: Re: Binary Distributions Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1993 15:27:29 GMT
torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Torvalds) writes:
>
>I generally like doing my own ports of things, but I've found I do it
>less and less now, and I'm personally glad there are binary releases for
>most things (especially for bigger things like xview etc). As to "only
>around 40-50M free", there are lots of people who don't have that much.
But Linux - er, Linus - *you're* not the problem!
The problem is when somebody tries Linux out, snarfs a binary, and then
runs it. If it doesn't work, there may be a version incompatibility, or
there may be a bug in either the software itself or Linux, or there may
be a simple configuration problem. Also, being a long-time hacker, *you*
know where you want to put everything, and you know all your software
versions (or can easily find this out). Unless a binary package is very
well designed, and deposits its file inventory and version number in a
standard place (e.g. under SCO, it's /etc/perms), hopeless confusion can
arise. The user, for instance, has no idea whether a given file is needed
or not, or whether it should be overwritten, or whether it should have
been overwritten :-). Unless installed via some standard configuration
mechanism, binaries are like the devil to newcomers.
---Richard L. Goerwitz goer%midway@uchicago.bitnet goer@midway.uchicago.edu rutgers!oddjob!ellis!goer