[linux-audio-user] Help setting up linux for high quality music listening via JACK

tim hall tech at glastonburymusic.org.uk
Thu Jun 29 05:44:17 EDT 2006


On Thursday 29 June 2006 09:40, Ryan Heise was like:
> On Thu, Jun 29, 2006 at 09:20:11AM +0100, tim hall wrote:
> > actually compiling it from source shouldn't be particularly
> > complicated. I know there is a psychological brick wall around package
> > building
>
> Problems with users trying to compile source code (on debian):
>
> - It is often necessary to install certain -dev packages first. At the
>   same time, it is rarely obvious to a user that a missing -dev package
>   is the reason for it not compiling.

man auto-apt

> - Mixing package-managed programs and manually-compiled programs gets
>   messy. E.g. If the user compiles/installs from source, and then
>   finally a proper package becomes available. It is not straightforward
>   to cleanly upgrade from the self-compiled version to the packaged
>   version.

Yes, this is precisely why we're talking about creating a .deb rather than 
suggesting to users that it would be just as easy to compile it from source. 
Personally, I would prefer to get comfortable with the process of making 
packages for newly compiled applications so it can be managed by apt. Once a 
debianised source package has been created, it would be possible to use 
apt-build in a similar way to the Gentoo system, although in most cases that 
would be unnecessary.

> Problems with developers trying to maintain packages:
>
> - Too many package formats.
> - Too complicated package formats.
>
> But developers should (I think) take on the responsibility to make
> things easier for users.

Some upstream authors will be happy to do this, others won't. This is really 
distro maintenance work. It may be possible to sponsor important applications 
into the main tree via debian-multimedia, where they will trickle down into 
DeMuDi, Ubuntu Universe and other derived distros eventually. If there would 
be problems with that (e.g. violations of DFSG) it would still be worth 
making the .deb available for the upstream author to distribute themselves. 
If we want to see things happen I think we have to take the attitude that 
it's up to 'us' rather than 'them'. ;)
-- 
cheers,

tim hall
http://glastonburymusic.org.uk/tim
We are the people We've been waiting for.



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