[SDL] Installation of binary apps on linux

[Michel Bardiaux]

Peter Mulholland wrote:
> Hello Michel,
> 
> Tuesday, December 5, 2006, 9:36:42 AM, you wrote:
> 
>> No, I really did type "exotic patch". Probably not the best choice of 
>> words, but "environment" is a tech term too. Anyway, the important word
>> was "exotic": running with game-supplied libraries instead of the 
>> system-supplied ones.
> 
> This isn't what I'd call exotic, it's actually quite necessary as I
> found out with Airline Tycoon and Northland - you CANNOT guarantee the
> user's machine will have a working SDL, SDL_mixer etc.. and simply
> telling them to install those is a nightmare (especially when distro's
> package broken ones!)
> 
> Likewise, you cannot guarantee the user's system will have the right
> versions of crucial things like libstdc++. Look at the old Loki
> titles, they needed updates just to be compatible with newer libc.
> Again, simply telling the user to have the right version of such libs
> on their machine is impossible.

I maintain that using non-system libs is "exotic". I dont imply 
"unnecessary evil". If "necessary" for the game, nevertheless I dont 
want them in my system directories. And if I understand you correctly, 
we agree on that.

> 
>> Exactly. On Windows you see each and every installer replace system exes
>> and dlls. <SHUDDER>.
> 
> Not these days, especially not for games - DLL's are normally inside
> the program's folder only. 

That works fine on Windows because of the rule "place of exe is the 
first place where to look for dlls". Unix (proper) and Linux have 
steadfastly refused that rule; whether or not they were right is very 
much debatable. There are workarounds such as LD_LIBRARY_PATH but the 
fact it is inherited poses other problems.

> The only global component that typically
> gets updated by a game installing, is DirectX.
> 
A major security issue.

Greetings,
-- 
Michel Bardiaux
R&D Director
T +32 [0] 2 790 29 41
F +32 [0] 2 790 29 02
E mailto:mbardiaux at mediaxim.be

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