Dependancies
 

I have used linux before but very briefly. I am a little confused by something. If the source install of program X would require program/lib Y but I decided to install a binary version, would I still need program/lib Y on the machine or does compiling the program with that dependancy clear out the need.

Thanks for the help

Pete

You need whatever program it depends on either way. The best way to install apps is by using the package manager your distro comes with.

The reason I ask is I am wanting to convert most of my windows servers to linux and put on the minimal requirements for all my applications and since I am a major newb I dont want to miss something.

If you run a recent version of a distribution such as Ubuntu, Mandriva, or SuSE, you will generally not have to worry about dependencies as they are solved for you.

The package management software used by these distributions are connected to an only repository of software. So you simply run the package management software, select which program you want, and it downloads and installs that program and will automatically select the necessary dependencies and install those as well (or it can get them from disks, if you bought disks). In this way, you do not even have to visit the official homepage of the software that you want to install, in order to retrieve that software.

If, however, the software you want to install is not included in your distribution's repository, then you will have to visit the official homepage of the software to retrieve it. This has to be dealt case by case as there are a wide range of scenarios in this situation. If you ever have that problem (which shouldn't be too often), you can come here for help.

If a program is dependent on a library, then it won't run if that library is missing. If you download the binary version, it won't run, and if you download the source, it won't compile. Your best bet is to download the binary from a site such as rpmfind.net or similar, and try to install it. If you are missing some package or library, go back to the same page from where you downloaded the binary. In all probability they would have listed all the dependencies to run that package, along with the links to their binary packages.

If you just want a minimal system, get any distro such as Mandrake, SUSE or RedHat. I would personally recommend Fedora Core. Fedora comes with all sorts of FTP, Web and Mail servers, so if you want it for a server, then, well, it's really good.

Also, for package installation, there are some tools such as Yum and apt-get. I haven't really tried any of them, but they're all really good. You just have to give a single command, and they'll take care of all the package dependencies themselves!

Welcome to the magical world of Linux.

Oh, and by the way, when you do find your way along Linux, do try your hand at compiling packages from source. It's fantastic! You can choose what parts of the program to build, customize the program to your particular set-up, and ever enable/disable the things you want/don't want. It's really cool!

for a linux system with "everything" , i suggest go for the "edgy" distro , eg.fedora , ubuntu and i believe there are other too ... not to say that they are the best but usually they work quite good provided you understand the "limitation" a linux system can do for you ... infact i suspect that if you get the right hardwares(especially those tv , multimedia and whatever external devices) you will be greatly impressed by what linux can offer whether you are a pro or normal users ... probably you will find that it makes no sense spending more time in windows , that is you can do without formats or services linux still cant support currently ...

as for a linux server installation , its better to find a big distro that can do rather extensive "multiple choice" of applications with "automatic" satisfying of requiring lib dependancies during the installation ... i dont have much experience in servers but i think servers are actually light-weight linux installations ...


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