On Sat, 08 Oct 2011 09:34:06 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> On 10/8/2011 3:52, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> In Windows, you have the entire ecosystem to support it.  It's called
>> "Windows".
> 
> Plus, the tendency is to bundle all that stuff together with the
> program, because you can't rely on the people having access to a
> "repository". So every install disk has IE6, Adobe Acrobat, mvcrt.dll,
> and DX9 on it, along with the program.

Windows could benefit from implementing something akin to a Linux 
software repository for stuff like this.  Getting the software makers to 
agree might take some work, but then again, Adobe has Acrobat Reader in 
most distributions' official repositories.

>> That's because in Windows you have one desktop environment, and one set
>> of dependencies.  Choice comes with a cost.  If you don't want the
>> choices, use Windows.  Or Mac.
> 
> Oh, and because people programming Windows know you don't have a
> repository, so they either bundle specifically what they need, or they
> don't reuse code they could because of dependencies, or they buy a
> version to include with their code that doesn't have the dependencies
> they want to avoid, or etc.
> 
> Why do you think the initial install of Windows takes so long and
> reboots so often? It's installing a bunch of stuff that you'd otherwise
> have to grab from a repository during installs of other stuff. You get
> .NET even if you're not going to use it, because you might in the
> future.

Yep, same reason some libraries are installed on a default Linux 
installation unless you're using Gentoo or LFS.

>>> or had my entire Windows installation completely cease functioning to
>>> the point where I have to reinstall.
>>
>> "Orchid XP v8" - you once said that the "v8" indicated how many times
>> you had reinstalled Windows XP.  So I call BS. ;)
> 
> Bazinga.

LOL

Jim

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