clipka wrote:
> Darren New schrieb:
>>
>> I.e., it's handled by the package manager, not by install scripts and 
>> so on, so if you compile and install from source, it's not going to 
>> bump the use count on your libraries.
> 
> That's what I wanted to know - thanks.
> 
> So, Windows is actually a lot better at this... /theoretically/.

I wouldn't say that. It's just that the installer for WIndows comes with the 
program. If I compile something from scratch on Windows and it uses some 
DLL, I'm not going to be able to ensure that DLL doesn't get deleted out of 
the system either.

It's still the "package manager" part of Windows handling it. It's just that 
Windows installers talk to the package manager as they run.  (And indeed, 
the whole "MSI" bit is making software more into Linux-style packages.)

I think the real difference is that there are relatively few DLLs that are 
shared amongst multiple programs from multiple companies but not part of the 
system. I.e., most programs that need graphics stuff either puts libpng.dll 
into the application's directory or it uses the graphics libraries that 
already come with Windows. Linux apps tend to have a lot more references to 
"random" underlying libraries that aren't officially part of "Linux" as 
such.  Windows uses "components" for the bits that are shared, and those are 
in the registry and thus tracked the way they're supposed to be. The places 
where you have lots of common functionality (e.g., Office), you have a 
"common files" directory, and your installer is set up to deal with the 
stuff in there appropriately. (I.e., there's a lot of help from Windows 
installers for shared but not universal functionality, in part because the 
writers of Windows also make a lot of money selling stuff with a lot of 
shared functionality like Office and MSSQL and such.)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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