Re: [GD-Linux] ANN: Candy Cruncher for Linux shipped

[Ryan C. G. <ic...@cl...>]

> Well, if you made it a bz2 file *perhaps* - but I doubt there are many
> Linux users who couldn't cope with a '.tgz' file.

That's not the point, or at least, it's not very forward-thinking.

If we aren't interested in making Linux "user friendly", then we might as
well scrap KDE, Gnome, and video game development for the platform.

Having an InstallShield style program is VERY important for the general
public. Because we know that you need to type "tar -xzvvf archivename.tgz"
is because we know better, and likely, we looked it up years ago. Do not
assume that everyone else has that experience.

Sure, we could pray that the user's GUI allows them to click on the
tarball and unpack it, but then we're back at square one; what the hell do
I do with this new folder that appeared on my desktop? For something like
candy cruncher, we could probably have just made a symlink in the
archive's root that points to the binary (indeed, this is what we're doing
for BeOS, because we honestly don't know any better), but there are games
and programs that need more complex installation than that.

> > Why don't people complain that there isn't a unified way to do ANYTHING in
> > Linux instead? That would solve the problem much better...we could remove
> > half of SDL's code, and 75% of the installer system.
>
> I think there is a unified way: "tar xzf whatever.tgz ; ./configure ; make install"

If you believe that autoconf work universally and unconditionally, then
you are sadly mistaken. Plus, I was referring to the various places
different distributions place files, the broken ABIs between versions of
glibc, the fact that there isn't a guaranteed user interface, and that
every user has a "my way" that is completely incompatible with everyone
else's.

Still, it comes to the same point: should we be porting games for people
(like myself) that like command lines and manpages and READMEs, or should
we be trying to make this as easy as possible at the cost of a slightly
bigger download?

--ryan.