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  • Originally posted by ворот93 View Post
    Scali, as a man who knows could you:
    1) Outline 10 biggest hurdles of Linux that affect you most
    Well, I think we should just stick with the one hurdle that was already discussed, for now: the problem of distributing applications in binary form.

    Originally posted by ворот93 View Post
    2) Tell us what distro has done the biggest job in overcoming those hurdles?
    There's the interesting part: this hurdle cannot be overcome by a single distro, unless that single distro gets a monopoly.
    Most distros have at least some mechanism to install software in binary form (in fact, this is still the most common form I believe, with things like rpm and apt-get. Normally they will install pre-compiled binaries rather than building from source).
    But, as mentioned, this only works if the package was prepared in advance for that particular version of that particular distro.

    With the few closed-source programs I've used on linux over the years, I found that they generally listed only 2 or 3 distros that they were compatible with, and then only specific versions of those distros.
    For example, I used Kylix at one point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kylix_(software)
    Furthermore, the last release of Kylix ran under now outdated versions of Linux: Red Hat Linux 7.2, SUSE Linux [Pro.] 8.0 [Kylix, ver. 2-29, Mon Mar 25 20:01:01 2002] and Mandrake Linux 8.2.
    So if you want to use it on a different distro or a current version of the mentioned distros, you will have to hack around yourself, installing older libs, and modifying various config files. Then pray it is going to work. And if it doesn't work, you can't call their support either, because they only support the versions and distros that they listed.

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    • @Scali

      Basically i would say binaries are no huge problem by definition. They are not statically linked but usually a lib dir is provided (or 2 in case of x64/x86 with a switching launcher). When done correctly it works on many distributions out of the box, some games might require symlinks (or just delete the libs) to get newer version. When standard names are used you can simply delete libs, if nonstandard names are used try symlinks. The main targets to do so are libopenal, libsdl or libqt. It is no rocked science to fix those problems. Of couse binaries can be done completely wrong as well, especially when they are build against a new libc6 and the target distro is older. Then you are usually lost. I found some games where "only" the installer had that problem, then i wrote my own install script. Mainly i found those issues by testing games from the Humble bundle, but i did not test those recently (i bought all bundles for the minimum value in order to be able to test when somebody has issues with Kanotix). What can be problematic is that when you use a 64 bit system and your app is 32 bit. Then you need of course 32 bit libs. Depending on your distro it can be easy or more complicated to get em working optimally. So i would like to have got of course 64 bit binaries just because of simpler ways to fix issues. When you look at id games you only got 32 bit binaries so far, this could be done better. But can you tell me which game you bought you could NOT run at all with your favorite Linux distribution? I think those issues could be solved and a vendor could provide a faq with hints for beginners or just a forum where advanced users can help others. Usually there are always ppl out there with more experience and those often help beginners.

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      • The failure of thinking here seems to be the (silly) assumption that developers will go out of their way to update their binaries when the linux devs remove some API call that their program uses from the kernel, breaking their program in the process.

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        • Originally posted by Kano View Post
          But can you tell me which game you bought you could NOT run at all with your favorite Linux distribution? I think those issues could be solved and a vendor could provide a faq with hints for beginners or just a forum where advanced users can help others. Usually there are always ppl out there with more experience and those often help beginners.
          Time to get some popcorn.

          P.S. Du Schlingel!

          Comment


          • Originally posted by Kano View Post
            When done correctly it works
            Well, there's the catch: it's not being done correctly. See gamerk2's remark.

            Originally posted by Kano View Post
            It is no rocked science to fix those problems.
            It's not that it's difficult to fix the problems, the point is that they have to be fixed at all.
            This means that you have to perform constant maintenance on your already released software in order to make it running and keep it running on all sorts of different distros, versions etc.
            This is a very different model from most other platforms, where you just release once. As already mentioned, Android 4.x can run Android 2.x applications out-of-the-box. Yes, Android 4.x has newer libraries etc, but no they are not an issue, because they are fully backward compatible. The application doesn't have to know or even care about the actual version of the library.

            Originally posted by Kano View Post
            I think those issues could be solved and a vendor could provide a faq with hints for beginners or just a forum where advanced users can help others. Usually there are always ppl out there with more experience and those often help beginners.
            Sure, in theory everything can be solved. It's just software after all. You can patch and emulate and hack indefinitely to make any system appear like any other system, and eventually make it work.
            The problem is in the realm of reality: it is too much effort, for too little gain to try and fix all these issues. So these issues should simply not exist in the first place.
            The key word here is: out-of-the-box. You just have to buy your software, click on the installer, and it should work. You should not have to go to some forum and hope that someone has the answers (which they usually don't, they do have lots of insults for you though). As long as you need forums to make linux software work, it is never going to be popular.

            Comment


            • Originally posted by Kano View Post
              @Scali
              Basically i would say binaries are no huge problem by definition. They are not statically linked but usually a lib dir is provided (or 2 in case of x64/x86 with a switching launcher). When done correctly it works on many distributions out of the box, some games might require symlinks (or just delete the libs) to get newer version. When standard names are used you can simply delete libs, if nonstandard names are used try symlinks. The main targets to do so are libopenal, libsdl or libqt. It is no rocked science to fix those problems. Of couse binaries can be done completely wrong as well, especially when they are build against a new libc6 and the target distro is older. Then you are usually lost. I found some games where "only" the installer had that problem, then i wrote my own install script. Mainly i found those issues by testing games from the Humble bundle, but i did not test those recently (i bought all bundles for the minimum value in order to be able to test when somebody has issues with Kanotix). What can be problematic is that when you use a 64 bit system and your app is 32 bit. Then you need of course 32 bit libs. Depending on your distro it can be easy or more complicated to get em working optimally. So i would like to have got of course 64 bit binaries just because of simpler ways to fix issues. When you look at id games you only got 32 bit binaries so far, this could be done better. But can you tell me which game you bought you could NOT run at all with your favorite Linux distribution? I think those issues could be solved and a vendor could provide a faq with hints for beginners or just a forum where advanced users can help others. Usually there are always ppl out there with more experience and those often help beginners.
              Heh, I don't understand why you care to explain it to him. Look out, the next argument in his hate stack would be "why don't they make stable architecture, x32, x64, multilib, why??11 ".
              Some people search for answers, some people search for a victim to brainfsck.

              Originally posted by gamerk2 View Post
              The failure of thinking here seems to be the (silly) assumption that developers will go out of their way to update their binaries when the linux devs remove some API call that their program uses from the kernel, breaking their program in the process.
              This is not a "silly" assumption, it is the right thing to do. Regardless of the platform.
              Last edited by crazycheese; 15 August 2012, 09:31 AM.

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              • Originally posted by crazycheese View Post
                This is not a "silly" assumption, it is the right thing to do. Regardless of the platform.
                Just like it is the right thing for users and developers to ignore the platform for exactly such reasons.

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                • Originally posted by Scali View Post
                  Just like it is the right thing for users and developers to ignore the platform for exactly such reasons.
                  No, the right thing to do is to ignore your BS. Easy as that. Gets all problems solved! HF.

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by crazycheese View Post
                    No, the right thing to do is to ignore your BS. Easy as that. Gets all problems solved! HF.
                    Sounds exactly like Linus Torvalds' attitude...

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by crazycheese View Post
                      This is not a "silly" assumption, it is the right thing to do. Regardless of the platform.
                      I'm speaking as a developer. I'm not going to re-design my application two years after I release it because some Linux developer decided to junk a bunch of the API's I used for the latest kernel revision. Its that mindset that's caused Linux to more or less be ignored by the marketplace.

                      Linux needs a stable API. Period. Now, feel free to change how that API is implemented as needed, but constantly junking interfaces is the quickest way to get people to ditch development for your OS.

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