[MPlayer-users] Why not make an installer?

[Joshua Rothenberg]

On Sun, 21 Dec 2003 21:38:18 +0200
Martin <lagitus at mbnet.fi> wrote:

> Since making a RPM-type installable binary package for all distros is not 
> possible, why not make an installer? 
Unless MPlayer was statically linked (which probably isn't possible) the binary
would require a specific version of each library it was linked to.
This is why binary packages are usually left up to the distributions.

>  Since better performance is gained when compiling the software 
> oneself, the installer could do that as well. It could have scripts for 
> finding necessary configure paths (like --with-gtk-config) and a field for 
> custom configure flags for more advanced users.
This is exactly what the configure script does. Perhaps you think MPlayer
should come with a script that runs ./configure && make && sudo make install
automatically? Or a frontend that just lists the configure options and then
runs these scripts?

I really don't understand the argument it's hard to compile software. .When
I started using GNU/Linux, I -with my towering intellect- looked at the files,
saw a  "README" file, read that I should read the INSTALL file, read that
and followed the instructions, and by God it worked.

> Using Loki Games' installer would give a half-finished solution
This has certainly been my experience with it!

But really, its the job of the distributions, not the people who write stuff
like MPlayer, to make the programs easy to install. Also, I agree with
Attila Kinali about the learning process; in the several years I've used
Linux, I've gone from newbie to programmer simply by using the system
more and more efficiently as I gradually learned how to do stuff. (Well,
I did program some before I used Linux) On the other hand, Windows
 doesn't really teach you anything. So there. :P

Joshua Rothenberg,