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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nemesis wrote:
> I understood your point.  Hand-compiled and installed povray or any 
> other is of no concern to the package manager.  Thus, it'll uninstall 
> libpng without caring if hand-compiled povray uses it or not.  It 
> doesn't even know hand-compiled povray exists.  Nor should it.

"It'll break your code, *and* it *should*!"  Ah, the mindset you can get 
away with when writing non-commercial software. :-)

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

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Darren New wrote:

> if you compile and install from source, it's not going to bump 
> the use count on your libraries.

Excellent fun. Compile something from source, and the package manager 
doesn't know you have it, and tries to install it again.

Weirdly, most software you compile from scratch has an uncanny ability 
to figure out what libraries are installed, no matter whether you're 
using RPM or DEB or EMERGE or...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>> I had that.
>>
>> Then I discovered that it can't delete the IE web cache. (Due to some 
>> kind of weirdness with it being system and hidden or something like 
>> that.)
> 
> Well, you do have to turn that off. "attrib -h -s junkdir /s"

Yeah, I think I tried that too. Basically there was something or other 
"magical" about that folder. Windows Explorer could delete it, but from 
the DOS box is was unclear whether it existed, couldn't quite be 
deleted, etc. I don't know if it was the attributes or the desktop.ini 
file or just a magic path hard-coded into the system or what... Tcl 
killed it without difficulty though. Haskell too. (All the more amusing, 
since Haskell is running under a Unix emulator...)

>> Even built a little Tk GUI for it, so you can see how much longer it's 
>> going to take. (Deleting 0.8GB of web cache takes a while...)
> 
> You can do this with "disk cleanup" tho.

Not programatically. And not on a roaming profiles folder on the server.

> Damn, you need a new job.

Really?! o_O

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
> 
>> if you compile and install from source, it's not going to bump the use 
>> count on your libraries.
> 
> Excellent fun. Compile something from source, and the package manager 
> doesn't know you have it, and tries to install it again.

Or you get to make up a package file by hand.

The worst I ever dealth with was a package that needed a very specific 
version of Boost, and since Linux doesn't do the whole "side by side" thing 
very well,

> Weirdly, most software you compile from scratch has an uncanny ability 
> to figure out what libraries are installed, no matter whether you're 
> using RPM or DEB or EMERGE or...

It's not that uncanny. It tries to compile the code, and if the compiler 
returns error messages, it knows why.

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

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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Weirdly, most software you compile from scratch has an uncanny ability 
> to figure out what libraries are installed, no matter whether you're 
> using RPM or DEB or EMERGE or...

  Most libraries are installed in a directory which the compiler directly
checks when you tell it to link that library in. Thus to check whether the
library is in the system it's enough to try and compile something which
tries to link that library and see if it succeeds.

  Moreover, all libraries are installed in the same few semi-standard system
directories in all popular Unix-based operating systems, so even if the
compiler is not used to check for the existence of the library, it's just a
matter of looking for them in those established directories.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> You can do this with "disk cleanup" tho.
> Not programatically. And not on a roaming profiles folder on the server.

True. Not without COM, and not if the profiles aren't logged in.

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

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> nemesis wrote:
> > I understood your point.  Hand-compiled and installed povray or any 
> > other is of no concern to the package manager.  Thus, it'll uninstall 
> > libpng without caring if hand-compiled povray uses it or not.  It 
> > doesn't even know hand-compiled povray exists.  Nor should it.

> "It'll break your code, *and* it *should*!"  Ah, the mindset you can get 
> away with when writing non-commercial software. :-)

  What's the package manager going to do? Scan the entire system for
executables which might be using that library? Sure, it could do that,
if you want to wait.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>   What's the package manager going to do? Scan the entire system for
> executables which might be using that library? Sure, it could do that,
> if you want to wait.

Even that wouldn't necessarily work. Note I didn't say there was an easy fix 
for the problem. I was mocking the attitude that since there isn't an *easy* 
fix, then it *should* break.  I.e., that the attitude is "this should be 
broken" rather than "this is regrettably broken."

But sure, if you uninstall stuff and it leaves libraries around, I can 
imagine a button you could push that says "Scan all the executables right 
now and tell me what libraries are installed that no executable references." 
Along with "tell me the last time someone loaded this library."  Then you 
could clean things up that stopped being used when you deleted some package 
six months ago.

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

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Darren New schrieb:

>> 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.

Yes, but I *can* roll my own installer to do it.

And it's standardized. It's not like I'd need to make an installer for 
Debian, another for Ubuntu, yet another for what-have-you-not...

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