Installing a compiler by default

[Stephan Hermann]

Hi Matt, Hello List,

On Thursday 08 June 2006 18:44, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> I would like to propose that, beginning in Edgy, Ubuntu desktop systems
> (both live and installed) should, by default, include the set of packages
> necessary to compile simple C programs and Linux kernel modules.
>
> My reasoning is based on the following points:
>
>  * Linux systems have traditionally shipped with gcc
>
>  * The most common way to obtain a new driver for a Linux system is
>    to compile it from C source code
>
>  * A common reason to install a new driver on a Linux system is to gain
>    access to the Internet, so support can be difficult to obtain in such a
>    scenario

How do you get the driver, when there is nobody who can provide you with the 
sourcecode?

As possible use-case I would honour Adams IRC proposal: Quote: 2006-06-09 
(times in utc+2)
"[11:15] <infinity> I have exactly one piece of hardware with a source tarball 
on the driver disk.
[11:16] <infinity> And it's a RAID controller, so the compiler being installed 
probably won't help me. :)
[11:16] <infinity> (Might help to have it in -live, I guess)"

But for the default install a compiler would bring more problems then 
advantages.
Most of the drivers for module-assistant e.g. are in universe, and those 
source drivers are not supported by any support channel at all, neither by 
commercial support nor community support. 

>  * A great deal of distribution-agnostic documentation assumes the
>    availability of gcc
>
>  * Users who are new to Ubuntu have no idea how to install the necessary
>    packages for building a kernel module

This is something which can be documented in the Ubuntu Handbook, or it is 
already.

> I'm interested in hearing more opinions one way or the other, especially
> from beyond the developer community.

To be frank, in the last couple of days, since Dapper release, we have an huge 
ammount of support questions for non stable software and how to compile or 
integrate new drivers for ati or nvidia cards, from people, who don't know 
anything about the architecture of Ubuntu or Debian. They break even their 
system by trying to install and configure XGL e.g. 
This is something for the support community, which is hard to handle actually, 
and if someone provides a possibility to compile new kernel drivers by 
default, this situation will be getting worse.

My Opinion,

\sh