[SDL] Installation of binary apps on linux

[Gabriele Greco]

Michel Bardiaux wrote:
> You're planning to do exactly what I *dont* want any software to do: go 
> against the standard installation procedures for my system (Linux debian).
>   
Well I think most not opensource project has no other way to follow...

I like dpkg/apt based systems but I need to make a single installation 
procedure that is "idiot proof" and not
limited to a subset of the linux distributions.

I NEED to install my libraries, obviously without interfering with the 
system ones, because there are a lot
of incompatibilites.

For instance I need to catch the desktop resolution (see the other 
thread very popular today) to support 16:9 resolutions and this is 
available only in SDL 1.2.8 or better.

A few of the machines where I tested the game provided only 1.2.6.

I had not only to add LD_LIBRARY_PATH trick but ALSO compile with -rpath 
to be sure the libraries used are the ones I ship with the game.


> The proper (and yes, painful) way is to make at least a deb for 
> 'stable'; possibly deb's for testing and for older debians (supporting 
> the previous stable is now part of debian policy). And you make rpm's 
> for umpteen RedHat releases.
This can be done for a rather small application and with enough systems 
to keep all those distro.

For big project like this one is (the linux port of 
http://www.ankh-game.com ) the installation package is 600mb.

A deb package, a rpm package and a tar (as fallback) would have needed 3 
times the disk space... adding nothing but extra complexity because I 
cannot depend on system libraries anyway.

I understand your philosophy but if we want (and we want?) Linux to 
become a mainstream operative system the installation procedures should 
be as simple as possible... And as indipendent from distributions as 
possible.
> If you really want to run in an 'exotic patch', *dont* install.
>   
What do you mean by "dont" install?

The installation procedure I've prepared put all the files in a 
directory chosen by the user (root privileges are not needed), this is 
an evil installation? It provides also an ./uninstall script to remove 
everything.


BTW: Thanks a lot to Ryan and Peter, I've produced a very fancy 
loki_setup installer (with gtk2, gtk1 and shell support) following your 
suggestions :)

Bye,
 Gabry

PS: Thanks also to Sam and all the other guys behind SDL :)