From: Leif W <war...@us...> - 2005-01-30 23:06:39
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Hello, How are you folks this day? So far, I have downloaded MinGW-3.2.0-rc-1.exe (it was the newest at the time) and MSYS-1.0.10.exe. I would like to start playing with GTK+ for windows (as a developer), and that requires some additional tools like m4, autoconf & automake, among others. First is the question, what do I need to download (from the MinGW or MSYS point of view). Second is the question, "What do I do if something is not available for download?". I presume that means I need to get the source and compile it. That is fine, if at that point I have everything I need to compile the source (a library, or an application, for example). But what do I do if this required piece of software has only source and no binaries (libraries or apps) available for Windows or MinGW or MSYS environments? (Use Linux and cross-compile? :) I'm having some difficulty trying to figure out exactly which files I need to get. I'm sorry if you find this question asked frequently or offensive, but if the question has to be asked then the page could clearly do a better job explaining in the first place. With all due respect, I find the grid horribly confusing and aesthetically displeasing to boot. From what I gather from the page, it's automatically generated, and it sure looks it. The recursive tables are attrocious to look at, and suck up some valuable screen space. At the very least it would probably be better to present that as a flat table with 7 columns, rowspans per grouping, and border=1, cellpadding=1, cellspacing=0. I'd be happy to help work out any coding logic to this effect. Furthermore, about the content, it is incredibly confusing to choose what to get, because there are no links to more detailed file info. It would be nice to know exactly what was in that 50MB file and that 10MB file. At the moment I'm on a dialup, and have limited disk space, so I don't particularly want to tie up a line for 4-5 hours just to find I got the wrong stuff, or duplicates. With these monolithic packages, the size is ok, I just would like to know which (if any) of the smaller packages are already included. This meta information would be very handy. Finally, what would really be super would be to have some sort of configurator. At the very least in the browser using forms, powered by JavaScript or on the server via CGI. Have a list of all discreet packages (programs and their assosciated config files, utility apps, libraries, etc.) and check off the packages I need. Click a button, and I see a page like the current download page, but with only the files which I want to download, and the discreetly named packages contained therein. The requested packages highlighted in green. Unmatched in grey or white, not found in red. Duplicates in yellow with a note about where the other(s) are located. At the best case, some sort of downloadable configurator, which can download a list of packages, and mirror sites, and generate all of these dialogs, then either print a list of URLs, or offer to retrieve the files, optionally from multiple mirror locations simultaneously (pending meta info comparison of file size and md5sum check, stored in external file with same base name). If I can figure out how to code with GTK+ I'd contribute such a beast, but someone will probably beat me to it. There may be dependency issues with such a packaging system, but that alone is no reason not to do it, as there are always going to be issues with any system or no system. The last thing I'd have to comment on is the 5 paragraphs at the beginning of the download page. It starts to describe something, and then says that was the old way so we changed it. Instead of describing in entirety all of "what was" and "what is", why not just describe "what is", and put the "what was" on a history page. In fact, none of the info on the page is particularly useful. I have read through it dozens of times, and have no better understanding of what I need to download. Yes, I know the difference between an .exe, a .zip and a tarball (be it a .tar.gz or a .tar.bz2). Yes, I know that an 8-digit string starting with a 4 numbers between 1995-2005, followed by 2 digit between 01-12, and ended with 2 digits between 01-31 represents a DATE! Whoo, big surprises there! :-) This tells me nothing about the contents of the archives, which is the information I am sorely missing. The directions to "Install (MinGW|MSYS)" do not really describe anything of value. If I want to use "./configure && make" then install MSYS. Hmm, I did that, and guess what? There is apparently no configure with the 10MB MSYS-1.0.10.exe package. What's the difference between that MSYS and the msysDTK? Is it only autoconf/automake? Does autoconf come with the configure program? I would guess, or hope yes, but would I again be mistaken? I appreciate the ability to download a specific mega-package of multiple sub-packages bundled together. But this by itself is much less useful than a fully-fledged package system that can let a person build exactly the system they want without downloading multiple copies of the same files, especially when the big packages really do not have everything that is needed, and do not describe exactly what they provide. Leif |