Small problem for Linux ? Sure. Big problem for Linux user? Of course.

Posted Jul 9, 2009 16:16 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

If your goal is to distribute only one "universal" binary, you are right this is seldom possible.

Your goal is to give users something they can use.

If on the other hand you start from source then it often just works or with only a minor effort.

...if you know how to install stuff from source. I was surprised at first when I found few years ago that some of my friends who work as admins don't know C and don't know how to compile programs from source... but then - why should they? It's rarely needed and when it's the only possibility - they can contact me and I'll help them (at first it was for free, later when I've tried to say "enough is enough" they just offered me to pay for my skills and now everyone is happy). If even admins can not compile stuff from source - what chance do you think "Joe Average" will have?

Porting your source code from one Unix vendor to the other was generally much more difficult than from one Linux distribution to the other. Simply because Linux distributions share most of their underlying source code.

Sure - this was the point in article. And my point is that such effort is still required if you are talking about programs for "normal users"... and there are more Linux distributions then there were Unix vendors...