On Wed, Nov 13, 2002 at 02:39:53PM +0530, Amish Munshi wrote:
It's pity that we still believe this. :-( We always mistake "familarity" with "ease of use". :-(
What I actually meant with "ease of use" the ease of use with which we install softwares on Windows, and i think it is due to the fact that windows is an integrated package.
Redhat Linux comes on three CD's. The installation requires a single reboot. After a few mouseclicks, you can have everything from publishing, development to games and entertainment within a total span of max three hours!
Installing MSN Messenger requires you to reboot the operating system ... easy to install???
Since there are very few varieties of windows, so the software developers know that the libraries that are available with each windows version and they can include the necessary stuff with their products, and save the problems of dependencies we have in installing softwares in linux.
That is NOT how the dependencies are solved. In Windows, software developers package *all* the libraries they need into the installer. This means multiple copies of every dll are present on the system in various folder. Every wonder why GNU/Linux apps are so small in size?
Shared libraries are meant to be shared ...
I have not spent sufficient time it, but with rpm's it is a horror of a time searching for a package which provides the required dependencies. I would definately love to have a easier softwae installation procedure than the one exists now.
APT was recently ported to RedHat ... that should be a big help.
Sameer.