Get rid of the Linux binary?

Get rid of the Linux binary?

[Mo DeJong]

It seems like the most serious problem folks
have run into so far is crashing when running
the Linux binary. This is most likely a
glibc mismatch problem, and frankly we
don't really want to deal with it.

I think we should just remove the "general"
Linux binary. It simply does not work,
people pull it down on some Linux box
we have not tested on, it does not work,
then boom we have a bunch of bug reports
to deal with. I would rather just give
Linux users the source code. Linux comes
with a gcc, so there is no reason someone
could not compile it from source.

We still plan on giving out RPMS for
Red Hat 6.x and 7.x when the Tcl/Tk 8.3
upgrade is done. Other folks have also
done binary versions for other Linux
distros. I think this is the right
solution for everyone in the long run.

Comments?

Mo DeJong
Red Hat Inc

Re: Get rid of the Linux binary?

[Mike Clarkson]

At 10:14 PM 4/5/01 -0700, you wrote:
>It seems like the most serious problem folks
>have run into so far is crashing when running
>the Linux binary. This is most likely a
>glibc mismatch problem, and frankly we
>don't really want to deal with it.

I know the feeling. For whatever it's worth, what we do
is compile static on RH 5.2. Seems to work everywhere,
but of course, your mileage may vary.

Mike.

Re: Get rid of the Linux binary?

[Richard F Weber]

Well, I would think do one of several things

1) Offer binary .rpm's for RH6.x & RH7.x, as well as source .rpm's for 
other platforms.  Would take care of dependencies, and allow users on 
say Mandrake to download and install
2) Also offer .deb files, but it's a format you have to support that you 
may not want to.  But it's better for the karma.
3)

Another comment, as an Admin, I like using RPM's because it's easier to 
document how to install something, and just do an rpm -Uvh on it.  As an 
end-user, I think it's kind of cheesy (sorry, no offense intended) that 
RedHat doesn't have one of their tools packaged up in .rpm format for a 
RedHat user to install from. 

Also, is SourceNav going to be offered on the PowerTools CD for RH7.1?  
I'd even like to see it on the main distribution, but I don't know what 
determines whether something is on the main distribution or not.

SourceNav is a really nice tool so far, and sticking it with the RH 
distribution is a nice way to increase it's exposure, plus convince 
companies to use.  "Look, we should use SourceNav as our IDE because it 
comes free with the OS".  Sorry about meandering a little off topic.

--Rich

Mo DeJong wrote:

> It seems like the most serious problem folks
> have run into so far is crashing when running
> the Linux binary. This is most likely a
> glibc mismatch problem, and frankly we
> don't really want to deal with it.
> 
> I think we should just remove the "general"
> Linux binary. It simply does not work,
> people pull it down on some Linux box
> we have not tested on, it does not work,
> then boom we have a bunch of bug reports
> to deal with. I would rather just give
> Linux users the source code. Linux comes
> with a gcc, so there is no reason someone
> could not compile it from source.
> 
> We still plan on giving out RPMS for
> Red Hat 6.x and 7.x when the Tcl/Tk 8.3
> upgrade is done. Other folks have also
> done binary versions for other Linux
> distros. I think this is the right
> solution for everyone in the long run.
> 
> Comments?
> 
> Mo DeJong
> Red Hat Inc
> 
> 

Re: Get rid of the Linux binary?

[Mo DeJong]

On Fri, 6 Apr 2001, Richard F Weber wrote:

> Well, I would think do one of several things
> 
> 1) Offer binary .rpm's for RH6.x & RH7.x, as well as source .rpm's for 
> other platforms.  Would take care of dependencies, and allow users on 
> say Mandrake to download and install
> 2) Also offer .deb files, but it's a format you have to support that you 
> may not want to.  But it's better for the karma.
> 3)

We are working on that, but it can't be done properly without
the Tcl/Tk 8.3 upgrade.

> Also, is SourceNav going to be offered on the PowerTools CD for RH7.1?  
> I'd even like to see it on the main distribution, but I don't know what 
> determines whether something is on the main distribution or not.

There is a rumor that Source-Navigator is going to go out
via the Red Hat Network update feature some time after
the 7.1 release.
 
> SourceNav is a really nice tool so far, and sticking it with the RH 
> distribution is a nice way to increase it's exposure, plus convince 
> companies to use.  "Look, we should use SourceNav as our IDE because it 
> comes free with the OS".  Sorry about meandering a little off topic.

Well, that is the plan.

Mo DeJong
Red Hat Inc

Re: Get rid of the Linux binary?

[Eray Ozkural (exa)]

Richard F Weber wrote:
> 
> Well, I would think do one of several things
> 
> 1) Offer binary .rpm's for RH6.x & RH7.x, as well as source .rpm's for
> other platforms.  Would take care of dependencies, and allow users on
> say Mandrake to download and install
> 2) Also offer .deb files, but it's a format you have to support that you
> may not want to.  But it's better for the karma.

Ahem, I'm the deb maintainer for sourcenav. I think it's bundled up
nicely in debian. Before you start making rpm's have a look at it.
I also did some work on stripping the custom tcl/tk stuff, but it
doesn't work surely.

Thanks,

-- 
Eray (exa) Ozkural
Comp. Sci. Dept., Bilkent University, Ankara
e-mail: erayo@cs.bilkent.edu.tr
www: http://www.cs.bilkent.edu.tr/~erayo