gEDA-user: a note from a novice user

[Taylor Jones]

On 7/25/06, Jim Strother <jastrother at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> First, after digging around a bit I found the ISO image for a CD.
> I burned this and it came up and ran pretty easily.  I was a little
> disappointed, however, when I learned that the install CD just
> compiled everything rather than pick from a set of binaries.  I
> spend enough time waiting for my own software to compile...
> but whatever.  Unfortunately, after about 20 minutes of it trying
> to compile it started to fail so I cancelled it.  I dug around a bit
> more an found that this was only for i386 machines, I have a
> x86_64 desktop.  It seems like it could detect this, also seems
> like an architecture-specific install REALLY doesn't need to
> compile everything.
>
> Next, I located a long list of rpms at
> www.sp5pbe.waw.pl/~sp5smk/geda.html
>
> I downloaded all ELEVEN of the rpms  and proceeded to
> install them.  Didn't work, failed due to a dependency on
> libgdgeda.  What's that?  Went digging around a little bit more
> and managed to find an rpm for this on a different page.
> Installed that first, then the other ELEVEN rpms and
> didn't get any error messages.


I think you should consider a Linux distribution with some sort of package
management. It pains me to see users manually satisfying package
dependencies. This is a thing of the past now that we have modern
distributions such as Ubuntu, Debian, or Gentoo. For example, I have
installed gEDA and PCB on two different distributions (Gentoo and Ubuntu)
and each took about, oh, 3 seconds of my time. On Gentoo it was as simple
as:

$ sudo emerge geda pcb

On Ubuntu it was as simple as:

$ sudo apt-get install geda pcb

These distributions have active development communities that go to great
trouble to make sure their systems download, configure, build, and install
packages and any dependencies in a safe, reliable manner. The fact that a
package is difficult to install is not necessarily a bug, it just means a
little more work perhaps for the Gentoo/Ubuntu package maintainer, but not
for you :-)

If you are looking to make a switch, I would recommend
Ubuntu<http://www.ubuntu.com/>as it is by far the most active and
heavily funded distribution available.
All the hard work that is going into that distribution directly translates
into less work for you.

Coming back to the gEDA project... maybe the download page should include
subsections on how to install for common distributions that have gEDA
incorporated into their package repositories. Also a note stating that these
are the recommended methods of installation for new users.

Anyway, just my $0.02. Hope it is constructive.

- Taylor
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.seul.org/pipermail/geda-user/attachments/20060726/d5e2583c/attachment.htm