Quote:
Originally Posted by eschwartz
I think, rather, that the instructions assume anyone setting up a development environment would be the type to understand such instructions.
If anything, this is wise. It ensures anyone keeping 2.x alive on XP is knowledgeable enough that *issues* will not blindside them. If it was as easy as say running an installer, all the riffraff would do it, and Kovid would get a million bug reports that "calibre 2.x on XP just ate my library!!!"
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To further support eschwartz's comment: running from source requires that the installed calibre binary be compatible with the source. From time to time changes are made in source that are incompatible with calibre V(yesterday) and require calibre V(today) to be installed. Recognizing this situation takes some experience because the usual symptom is a strange crash. In addition, from time to time there are runtime library changes that fix bugs or add features. The ICU library changes over time are a good example.
Couple this with the fact that calibre now refuses to install on XP as well as refuses to run. This means that as soon as the next calibre runtime changes for whatever reason, XP users will be required to run the portable version of calibre in order to get the up-to-date binary. Although it is possible to run from source using the binaries from the portable version, it isn't completely obvious how to set it up.
Bottom line: keeping XP alive by running from source will require technical expertise. There is no way around it.