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OSNews: Why Linux Binaries are not as Easy to Handle?

“Have you ever wondered why, in other Operating Systems such as
Windows, MacOS or even BeOS, the task of installing software is so
easy compared to Linux? In such OSes you can simply download a
.ZIP/.RAR/.EXE/.etc file, decompress in a folder and run either the
contents, or a graphical installer which will help you through the
install process.

“This doesn’t happen in Linux, as there are only two standard
ways to install software: compiling and installing packages. Such
methods are usually complicated and inconsistent between them, not
to mention difficult for new users. Even if package management was
greatly simplified in the most popular Linux distributions,
developers still can’t proovide packages for all existing distros,
or even for all compiler versions.

“Previous articles have mentioned these issues many times, but I
think it is still not clear why do they happen. In this one, I will
focus in writing about why it is impossible for us, developers, to
proovide programs in simpler ways…”

Complete
Story

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