Re:What makes us Red Hat
by dTal on Wednesday April 05, 2017 @03:25PM
(#14044789)
At least you had a package manager with a reasonable number of packages. My first distro as a main OS was Puppy Linux because it was a small download (remember dialup?) Actually at the time I didn't even have internet in my apartment, so installing software went something like this:
1) Identify a really interesting piece of software, like OpenFOAM, with (unbeknownst to me) lots of dependencies
2) Take a half hour walk to the local library with my shiny 4gb flash drive (89 dollars, a Christmas present to myself).
3) Download the .tar.gz of the software.
4) Walk home.
5) Unpack the .tar.gz and run ./configure. Watch it fail.
6) Walk back to the library to download the missing dependency. Walk home.
7) Goto 5.
I ended up very irritated that configure always fails on the first missing dependency, instead of comprehensively listing the missing requirements in one go. Things did get a bit easier when I learned to scour the documention for any libraries referenced, but of course reading the docs still often required a trip back home to unpack the tarball...
1) Identify a really interesting piece of software, like OpenFOAM, with (unbeknownst to me) lots of dependencies
2) Take a half hour walk to the local library with my shiny 4gb flash drive (89 dollars, a Christmas present to myself).
3) Download the .tar.gz of the software.
4) Walk home.
5) Unpack the .tar.gz and run ./configure. Watch it fail.
6) Walk back to the library to download the missing dependency. Walk home.
7) Goto 5.
I ended up very irritated that configure always fails on the first missing dependency, instead of comprehensively listing the missing requirements in one go. Things did get a bit easier when I learned to scour the documention for any libraries referenced, but of course reading the docs still often required a trip back home to unpack the tarball...