[Mplayer-cvslog] CVS: 0_90 README,1.9,1.10

[D Richard Felker III]

On Sun, Jun 01, 2003 at 03:43:33AM +0200, Diego Biurrun wrote:
> On Sat, May 31, 2003 at 06:01:48PM -0400, D Richard Felker III wrote:
> > On Sun, Jun 01, 2003 at 12:17:03AM +0200, Diego Biurrun CVS wrote:
> > > Modified Files:
> > > 	README 
> > > Log Message:
> > > Kernel headers or glibc headers are necessary for compilation.
> > 
> > IMO this is very misleading. For one thing, I don't see how having
> > either one or the other is supposed to work. They're separate things,
> > not interchangable.
> 
> I compiled MPlayer today at the LUG on my notebook for the first time in
> months and stumbled over /usr/include/linux/errno.h and limits.h.  These
> files belong to the glibc development package (at least on Debian and SuSE).
> 
> My compile failed because I had moved /usr/include/linux to linux.old and
> added a symlink to the includes from my kernel sources.  This also works and
> it is not so uncommon IMHO.
> 
> Maybe it would be better to just state that kernel headers are an
> alternative or assume that if you do these types of hacks you can find out
> which packages you need anyway.
> 
> > Second, mplayer does NOT require glibc, much less glibc headers, just
> > a working compiler and build environment. On a glibc-based system,
> > this means glibc headers, but elsewhere it means something completely
> > different. Can we please avoid filling the docs with linux-centricism
> > like this?
> 
> MPlayer is called "a movie player for Linux" after all.  Maybe we should
> finally change that to Unix, but Arpi was against it in the past.
> 
> Most people use Linux and if you don't you probably know that glibc does not
> apply to you.  But I can add that this is Linux specific.
> 
> What about this:
> 
> - Under Linux you have to install libc6 (glibc) development packages or have
>   the kernel headers in your include path.

IMO this is still misleading. You could be using uclibc (an
increasingly attractive choice since glibc keeps getting more and more
bloated and broken), or libc5, or whatever. I would just say something
like:

You need a working development environment that can compile programs.
On popular Linux distributions, this means having the glibc
development package(s) installed.

You could also put something like "You may also want to have kernel
headers installed," if you think it's necessary, but afaik the distros
try to avoid using those anyway so it's probably not relevant to
newbies.

IMO the point of stressing the need for a "working development
environment" rather than for particular packages should be to
emphesize that MPlayer is not making the user go to any great lengths
to get it to compile, and that these are basic things you must have
present to compile ANY program... (btw, why doesn't the gcc package
depend on glibc-devel??? :/ that would fix the situation where newbies
can't compile...)

Rich