Installing a compiler by default

[Murray Cumming]

[snip]
> 2. Person wanting to compile some random stuff
> If you know what compiling is, you should probably already also know
> what to look for. The documentation team will fix the fact that our
> help says nothing about gcc or compiling for edgy. If I google "gcc
> ubuntu", the first hit I get is how to install build-essential.  Same
> with "compiling ubuntu".
[snip]

Furthermore, it's almost never as simple as
- install build-essential
- untar
- configure
- make
- sudo make install
and it's not fair to users to lead them down that path with little chance
of success.

They'll need to know about dependencies (often from source), pkg-config
and -dev packages. And if they've learnt that then they already know how
to get gcc, and it's the least of their problems. If they can't get past a
configure failing because gcc is not present then they don't have much
chance. Building from source is difficult.


Murray Cumming
murrayc at murrayc.com
www.murrayc.com
www.openismus.com