[dundee] [jtsmoore@revolution-os.com: Re: Screening of Revolution OS]

[Andrew Clayton]

On Mon, 2003-07-21 at 19:38, Jonathan Riddell wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 21, 2003 at 06:58:19PM +0100, Andrew Clayton wrote:
> > On Mon, 2003-07-21 at 17:44, jim wrote:
> > > I would love to see a preinstalled version of linux to compaire with 
> > > windows preinstalled.
> > > 
> > 
> > www.dnuk.com
> > www.xinit.co.uk
> > 
> > are two...
> > 
> > 
> > > I had to reinstall Redhat yesterday but it was pretty fast for a clean 
> > > install. Windows XP and 2K both take a long time.
> > > Mind you I still wounder about the ease of installing software once you 
> > > get your computer home for new users comparied to windows.
> > 
> > Hmm, some kind of install shield wrapped around rpm/deb, would do the
> > trick.
> > 
> > Though if you have an rpm or deb, it's pretty easy anyways...
> 
> Unfortunatly the lack of binary compatibility means you have to get
> the exact right .rpm or .deb for your distribution version.  
> 

Well.. yeah... But lets stick to the main ones. Red Hat, Mandrake, SuSE
and Debian and versions thereof.

 

 
> Plus dependency resolution is always going to be less than perfect for
> programmes which arn't included in your distributions CDs or a handy
> apt archive.  At least unless the package contains all staticly linked
> libraries like they do on windows.
> 

This is what the LSB is for.


> Windows has binary compatibility from 1995 pretty much, Mac can still
> run programmes from 1985.  You just can't get on GNU/Linux.  Which
> makes it a lot easier on the developers of course.
> 

Well you can... ;). You'd just have to install a shed load of
libc's/glibc's etc, hmm, then of course there is the kernel.

But that is one of Linux's strengths, it doesn't have to carry around
all that baggage.

If you have some binary only app that needs libc 4 and 1.2 kernel, then
run some old distro. If not, just upgrade, choice is yours ;).


> Jonathan Riddell


--
Andrew