Installing a compiler by default

[Micah J. Cowan]

On Wed, Jun 14, 2006 at 08:53:01AM -0400, Peter Whittaker wrote:
> This has been a long thread, and my email could be just as long, so I
> will bullet briefly instead of discoursing discursively....
> 
> 1. For some of us, disk isn't cheap (small machines, bad partitioning
> decisions, dual boot, combination of all three, whatever). Saying "it
> doesn't take up that much space" is bad logic, and this isn't the only
> package that "says" that. How long before I run out of / because of poor
> packaging rationalizations?

Yes, but "it doesn't take up that much space" /and/ "it's an essential
package for many people" puts it ahead of the rest, I should think.

However, gcc doesn't /not/ take up that much space, considering all the
other stuff you need with it (development headers and binutils). This is
a great argument for the ask-user-at-install proposal.

> 2. If developers need a compiler, then learning how to get it for the
> platform seems a small price to pay and is probably a good thing. Climb
> that learning curve, then compile!

I think I pretty much agree with this. It doesn't hurt to make it an
explicit option at install time, though.

> 3. If non-developers need to link modules into the kernel, perhaps
> another tool is needed, a lighter-weight driver linker. I confess my
> ignorance in this area, perhaps gcc is the lightest-weight alternative;
> but it still isn't needed by everyone, perhaps not even by a significant
> minority. But perhaps my ignorance is typical - how many of us, the
> broader Ubuntu community, even know or ever will know what it means to
> compile/link drivers into the kernel? or even what a kernel is?

AFAIK, gcc nor the bin utils are necessary for linking modules to the
kernel: lsmod does it all. A C compiler is necessary for /compiling/
modules, when that need arises.

> 4. Given other threads (reclaiming lost disk space, etc.), perhaps what
> are needed are ubuntu alternatives for developers, gamers, etc., similar
> to edubuntu, kubuntu, etc.: The default for the vast majority of us is
> and will be ubuntu (desktop with office apps, entertainment
> capabilities, email, browser). Developers could kick tires with
> devbuntu, which would come with all the toys (why do I even have gdb on
> my system?). Those with bleeding edge hardware or with a need to suck
> every bit of performance they can from the system could opt for
> genbuntoo, which would be similarly equipped.

To /me/ That's too much to keep track of, and really unnecessary if
there's only a handful of extra packages we're talking about.

As to why you have gdb on your system, I really can't imagine that's
installed by default when gcc is not?

The genbuntoo may not be a bad idea, though I don't know if it's
feasible.

> I confess, when I first installed Ubuntu I was surprised to learn there
> was no compiler. But I got over that: I lived on Windows without one for
> years, and I know how to use apt-get. I still don't have one (/ is
> tight), but I know where to get it if I need it. And besides, if I
> really feel like coding, awk, perl, and python are there (whether I need
> them or not! :->).

(You may not use them directly, but you almost certainly need them
indirectly. These are used by many things.)

-- 
Micah J. Cowan
Programmer, musician, typesetting enthusiast, gamer...
http://micah.cowan.name/