Fw: linux newbie

[Christopher Schmidt]

On Mon, Jan 15, 2007 at 11:30:39AM -0500, Ben Scott wrote:
> [replying on-list to an off-list reply, with the author's permission)
>  Sometimes, the package(s) you need will be mentioned in the
> installation instructions or release notes.  More often, the developer
> assumes that every computer in the world has the exact same
> configuration as his own computer.

Or that author doesn't have the resources to start 'clean' and find out
what exactly installs all the pieces he's depending on. When I type
"import Cheetah" in Python, I don't know what debian packages I'm
depending on -- even if I were to look in obvious places, i'ts likely
I'd miss something.

Having a 'clean room' state for a machine is handy, but given the nature
of open source, is often a bit more than you can expect from a casual
developer. It makes life more difficult for everyone else, but
oftentimes it's merely the result of an inability to find the
information neccesary to describe a recreation process.

Or sometimes they're just lazy. :)

Regards,
-- 
Christopher Schmidt
Web Developer