Quote:
Originally Posted by KevinH
Hi,
Can anyone explain why on Linux they separate the headers from the library? Especially for a system library like libjpeg? Wouldn't it be better to keep the two together as the headers take up only a small space?
Or alternatively if you want to separate out the headers, then create one package for all of the main system level libraries so that people who try to build on Linux (and that is really everyone at some point isn't it) don't have to go hunting to get both the key basic libraries and their headers?
Short, that I would to be able to check just one box during install that says I want to compile my own packages and then have it auto install all of the main libraries and their headers?
I could not find something like that with my Mint 17 Cinnamon install last year and spent forever trying to remember what package provides the basic libraries and their headers as I used to use RedHat Enterprise and was used to different package names completely.
Just grouching ...
KevinH
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Because they expect most users to not need those headers, and it saves a few MB (max) per package.
And debian-based distros absolutely LOVE splitting packages into dozens of sub-packages. I don't know why.
As I said above, with ArchLinux it "Just Works".
I can build sigil from scratch just by making sure the linked qt5 libraries (qt5-webkit which pulls in the rest from qt5-base) and python packages are installed. Plus the handful of components that the build system itself needs (git, cmake, qt5-tools for translation building...) Headers for
everything come with the package that created it, because Arch expects that you will likely end up compiling things yourself.
Or alternatively, because Arch follows the KISS philosophy, and splitting the headers is more hassle than it's worth.
About the only thing I can think of that is split, are the kernel headers for building modules. And there's 35 MB worth of them, so it's worth it...
I've decided that Debian just likes making things hard for the sake of making them hard. Great end-user distro, if you don't need to fiddle with the guts, but once you need to do develop... just run away screaming as fast as you can.
