the creature from the black lagoon.... or dealing with OS cr…

On Tue, 2003-10-14 at 10:36, Ren wrote:
> Let me explain one of my aggravations with Linux...
>
> There are times when I want to try out a new program (which we will
> call program A, not original... But it will work) and I find out that
> there isn't a package for program A on my disco.. So I get the source
> and compile it. Well I find out that program A needs library B and my
> version of library B is only 1.2.55.3.4.1 not 1.2.55.3.4.2 that it
> requires. As luck would have it there isn't an update for library B on
> my computer so I set off to compile it too, which in turn means I need
> to get library C and D to get it working. I compile everything and
> install it, hoping that it will work, often times with varying degrees
> of success.
>
> Over time, my original distro, be it Debian, mandrake, or whatever,
> mutates into some other creature all together where package management
> is holding on a thin thread that is drawn tight and ready to snap
> because of all the non distro libraries, programs, etc I've installed.
> How to you guys deal with this?
>

My preference is: If the software provider (of the program I want to
try) didn't think far enough ahead to have their stuff run on as many
systems as possible, then they probably didn't think very far ahead with
regards to other design aspects.

Further more, if they can't provide a package for something as common as
Mandrake, RedHat, or Debian, further suspicions as to the quality of
their stuff arise.

Of course these rules-of-thumb don't always apply.

For those times when this doesn't work and I must compile the lib (or
whatever), I do my best to give it its own home in /usr/local/libname.
Plus I keep a log of the install (`make install &> log&; tail -f
--pid=xxxx log`). Now if I decide I don't want it, I can thoroughly get
rid of it.


Bart