Installing a compiler by default

[Alan McKinnon]

On Friday 09 June 2006 15:51, Alexander Jacob Tsykin wrote:
> On Friday 09 June 2006 19:26, Alan McKinnon wrote:

> > Somewhere in there you normally supply a '--prefix=/usr/local' to
> > keep the actual Ubuntu stuff and your compiled stuff separate.
>
> That prefix is implied int eh command, it doe snot have to be used.
> Things will automatically be compiled into /usr/local, so you only
> specify the prefix if you need them to go somewhere else.

I beg to differ slightly: you can't be assured of that. /usr/local is 
a sensible default for autotools, but some code authors have been 
known to change it to whatever they feel like whether it makes sense 
or not. All easily bypassed by reading the README naturally.

> > You do have to resolve dependencies manually of course, but these
> > are much rarer than you might think, usually some underlying lib.
> > Rinse, repeat.
>
> It's always been pretty frequent for me,andunless you know what to
> look for, you can spend a lot of time hunting for dependencies and
> still never find them.

gcc and binutils are the worst for that. Heck, make that the entire 
toolchain. Fortunately only LFS, Gentoo and FreeBSD users need worry 
about that, it's not applicable here.

Again, a good README is invaluable here

> > The Ubuntu packagers do a very good job but they can't keep on
> > top of every package out there, some projects move so fast that
> > you need to do it yourself to stay current. wine especially comes
> > to mind, there are 100s of others. Don't shy away from using the
> > compiler - you have to try really hard to break stuff using it.
>
> IN general, this is true, and in any case there are some programs
> not available for Ubuntu, however, with wine, just use the wine
> repository, its easier that compiling yourself, and certainly
> quicker.

Well, wine was just a quick example off the top of my head - I like to 
keep up with latest developments on that. It's not the only example.

-- 
If only me, you and dead people understand hex, 
how many people understand hex?

Alan McKinnon
alan at linuxholdings dot co dot za
+27 82, double three seven, one nine three five