[luau] MSWindows

[Eric Hattemer]

> Get a better packaging system, one that can fulfill dependencies for you
> automatically.  Windows programs have library dependencies too (of
> course), but they generally include them all on the CD.  Linux programs
> try to avoid redundant downloading, so they don't do that.  Debian's
> apt-get program will take the package you ask for, and automagically
> download and install it and all it's dependencies.  Gentoo's BSD ports
> system does the same but it also compiles it from source.  Honesly I
> don't know how RPM became the standard for Linux packages.  It was a
> great first step, but there have been vast improvements upon it.
>
> Lately, many RPM based distributions have taken to a debian like
> approach.  I believe Mandrake has urpmi and you can actually make
> apt-get work with RPM on redhat systems.  This should eliminate the
> "dependency hell" commonly complained about by RPM users.

Perhaps this really is the right solution.  But once again, instead of
pusing the responsibility toward the user ("use a different distribution"),
RedHat should work on their packaging system, moving to a ports or apt-get
type of program.  Furthermore, their GUI packaging programs kind of suck.
gnorpm hasn't changed since 6.0, and still contains messages like "not all
functionality is here, but someday, we'll fix it", and kpackage (which I
really liked, but Warren had some kind of problem with), mysteriously
disappeared in the newest versions of redhat.  But really, since Redhat has
become the standard that everyone knows how to use and support, etc., its a
shame that their packaging tools are so bad.

> Actually, people are working on this.  KDE and GNOME are a far cry from
> what my X11 desktop looked like on Slackware 3.6 (aka Slackware98).
> There are GUIs (both X and console based) for things such as software
> installation, but with a good package manager, the GUI isn't needed.
> Why click next 10 times when you can just type "apt-get install foo"?
> Configuration is also progressing rapidly.  There have got to be tens,
> possibly hundreds of tools for helping you configure your system.  If
> anything, the problem is there's too many of them!

I have no problem with multiple desktops, etc.  I just wish KDE didn't crash
so often.  Now while some people would like to type in commands, and I'm
sure it is faster, but it is a lot to expect from beginning users.  Its one
of those things that can make your life easier if you learn it, but
shouldn't be a requirement.  Something similar to kpackage would be great.

-Eric Hattemer