[sldev] Linux variants to support (Re: Projects that I'm working on)

[Jan Ciger]

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Hi Rob,

Rob Lanphier wrote:

> 
> I'm going to guess that it's going to take more than Tofu.
> 
> It's entirely reasonable for us to drop support for older desktop
> distros. Since desktop Linux (the platform, not just our Linux viewer)
> is in a seemingly perpetual beta, and that distros are pretty much
> designed to be upgraded free of charge, it doesn't make as much sense to
> support old versions. 
...


You should not have to "support" any specific linux distros explicitly.
Instead, work with the distro packagers to get your stable releases in
their distributions. Then the users download a tested and guaranteed
working version from the official distro repositories using the regular
tools.

That has many advantages - proper QA, proper desktop integration, not
having to ship lots of libraries which most distros have anyway, not
having to deal with the distro-specific hacks etc. The packagers will do
a lot of the "support" work for you if you make their job easy.

One issue you will encounter are the proprietary pieces - e.g. FMOD,
Kakadu and Vivox. These will be obstacles e.g. for Debian and Mandriva
to include your viewer into the regular repositories. FMOD and Kakadu
can be worked around by using OpenAL and OpenJPG, but Vivox could be a
problem if it is not redistributable by 3rd-parties.

Also, do not focus on Ubuntu - it is far from the most popular desktop
distro in Europe. Here is the market more diverse due to the language
diversity and you will find a lot of specialized distributions. Again,
it is an argument against trying to "support" distributions - the
logistics wouldn't scale. Just work with the packagers to get your code
in their product.

Regards,

Jan

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