Why not provide decent defaults?

To compile your applications is clearly not the typical way to install them. If Firefox is not working, you have a serious problem, did you try to just uninstall and reinstall it?

To compile applications, you can look for "build-essential", it's a meta packages including all the typical files for compilation.
Also, when compiling, usually there is a command to run to get the list of dependencies. You can't install all the needed files to compile any application by default, otherwise the size of the OS will just double or even more. So you have to install some sources manually when compiling I guess.

About DVD, that's a typical problem with Linux, as it's not legally possible to read a DVD in certain countries without paying for the software. But it doesn't matter that much in fact, this should be explained to the user and offer alternatives.

François Tissandier wrote:
> Your question #15994 on Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/15994
>
> Status: Open => Answered
>
> François Tissandier proposed the following answer:
> To compile your applications is clearly not the typical way to install
> them. If Firefox is not working, you have a serious problem, did you try
> to just uninstall and reinstall it?
>
I found the firefox install in the install tree and that version works.
I had tried to directly get the Linux version
from Mozilla, which didn't work. In any case, I should be able to
compile Mozilla as an application since that's all
it is, and a compilation is guaranteed to use the right libraries etc.
> To compile applications, you can look for "build-essential", it's a meta packages including all the typical files for compilation.
> Also, when compiling, usually there is a command to run to get the list of dependencies. You can't install all the needed files to compile any application by default, otherwise the size of the OS will just double or even more. So you have to install some sources manually when compiling I guess.
>
Doubling the size of the OS in terms of the kernel or disk space
occupancy is not a big deal in comparison to
the size of today's disks and typical memory complements (512MB RAM,
250GB disk should trivially accommodate
a "doubling" of the size of the OS.) And I am simply saying it should be
an install-time option.
> About DVD, that's a typical problem with Linux, as it's not legally
> possible to read a DVD in certain countries without paying for the
> software. But it doesn't matter that much in fact, this should be
> explained to the user and offer alternatives.

A friend and I got that working too. The short list of three or four
simple commands we had to issue should be on the standard FAQ at ubuntu
- is not an FAQ the answer to "frequently answered questions"? Since no
ubuntu install out of the box will play DVDs, it is obvious that how to
be able to do so would be a frequently asked question. If my friend had
to search two or three places to get the answer, let's spare people from
having to do those same searches and just list the precise answer
directly at the "source", pardon the pun, at the ubuntu website.

My understanding is that using the quasilegal software is a necessary
act of statutory disobedience: in other words,
we're doing what we have to do to be able to watch DVDs we BOUGHT on OUR
CHOICE OF COMPUTER. So send in the
lawyers.

Hello,

> "The short list of three or four simple commands we had to issue should be on the standard FAQ at ubuntu - is not an FAQ the answer to "frequently answered questions"?" <

Yes you are correct about the FAQ and it is mentioned in the Ubuntu CommonQuestions, section 3.5:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CommonQuestions

>And nothing in "add-remove programs" that seems to address the issue.<

Enabling support for all such restricted formats is easily done by installing "ubuntu-restricted-extras" package which is listed under Add/Remove as "Common Customizations".

As for Firefox, if you enable the backports and security repositories, you will most likely always have the recent Firefox release with any patches. If such is not the case, and you really wish to install from source, an easy way to get the build dependencies is to use the command sudo apt-get build-dep firefox. Also install the build-essential, autoconf and automake packages.

>Perhaps you can add one YES/NO step in the install that says "install all the normal things that will allow you to compile downloaded programs without having to do 15 weird things first"?<

These packages cannot be installed by default or included in their entirety on the CD because of space restrictions, and because the typical user does not need them. Every program has a lot of dependencies of its own and it is simply not reasonable to install all of the (thousands of) -dev packages. So people install the build dependencies of individual programs as and when they need. This is exactly the job of the apt-get build-dep command. If the program you are compiling is not in Ubuntu's repositories already, the developer should have provided you with a list of dependencies you should install before compiling.

Best,
Prashant

I sympathize with your problems. I have been installing php, mysql, and apache2 for about a week on this one (new) machine. I finally got it working about 90%. The main problem I observed was that some of the install scripts are not fully tested. For example, after an install, you can get all 3 of these working acceptably but they will not work with each other. To avoid getting too technical here let me just say that software testing is definitly needed to a more comprehensive extent.

In my case, I can understand how some things could have fallen through the cracks because you can these parts to work using simple built in commands but when php wants to access mysql, it needs to have a link to the library. That was left out.

But look at this way, you still don't have to deal Windows and all of its overhead. And then also wondering why there is so much asynchronous internet traffic when you don't even have IE launched. Linux (in any flavor) is worth it.

kind regards,
andrew