development tools and non-free drviers

[Scott]

Michael Shigorin wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 20, 2005 at 02:19:56AM -0700, Scott wrote:
>> The "build essential" package is a tad bewildering to a number
>> of users new to Ubuntu, but not to Linux.  Why?  Because
>> they've not used a Linux distribution that didn't include GCC
>> or make in the default installation.  I was chatting with a
>> Fedora Core 4 user recently and he said something to the effect
>> that it was "lame and inexcusable" that Ubuntu didn't include
>> these in the default installation.
> 
> Well it's his own lame problem that Fedora user needs gcc that
> bad anyways ;)

Why is it lame?  I needed it when I used Fedora a year or so ago. And I 
need it now that I've switched to Ubuntu.

> 
>> I thought it was a bit over the top, but he does make (no pun
>> intended) a good point.  To the best of my knowledge, we're not
>> even talking about 10 mb worth of files here. I would
>> "build-essential" could easily be included in the default
>> installation.
> 
> I think it's a "political" decision, similar to that of not
> including even tiny development tools into ALT Linux Compact 
> (which is single-CD OEM/desktop).  It's because the basic tools
> are basically useless without companion ones and a (varying)
> bunch of libraries, and there's just no clear stop point to set
> but at the clear start on this way.

Well unless and until (and this is even more true with Ubuntu than 
Fedora) Linux distros include every possible package a user wants, stuff 
like "build-essential" will be very much in demand.

I've come across quite a few "howtos" for creating Debian packages for 
Ubuntu (since the packages one would be creating aren't in Ubuntu's 
repositories).   One of the first instructions is "sudo apt-get 
build-essential".


-- 
Scott
www.angrykeyboarder.com
© 2005 angrykeyboarder™ & Elmer Fudd. All Wights Wesewved