You haven't irritated me. :-) From the beginning of your reply I got the impression that it was just a repost and that you hadn't noticed Ralf's response. Perhaps if you had replied with the same subject I wouldn't have made this mistake. I apologize.
No worries, thanks for the detailed reply!
IMHO, If Ralf says the problem is fixed, you can be very confident it is. Does yum have a command similar to `apt-get build-dep`? That would help you significantly in building your own rpm.
I really don't know. It seems Fedora is not that popular a distro, or that Inkscape devs just happen not to use it! If I can't get a binary then I will focus on compiling it - it's a last resort for me!
This problem is mine. I'm rather inexperienced in the dark arts of building software on linux and I have yet to be successful in making the 0.44 autopackage link properly. It seems that there are a few people having difficulties building autopackages with Ubuntu.
Right okay, I'll ditch the autopackage then. Good luck with it!
b. An RPM for FC3
0.44 will not build on core 3, as you have experienced. But these problems are believed fixed in SVN. And I assume what Ralf meant when he suggested waiting for 0.44.1, was that you should wait for an RPM. Even then we will only be able to offer a Core 3 RPM if a volunteer steps forward to build one.
Okay. If I get a chance I'll try my hand at that.
c. Some discussion relating to my last question about inkspace vs Firefox/Thunderbird
It would be a large package. :-) The autopackage attempts this in part, but only collects the rarest deps, but until I am successful, it is not an option. This also relates to your comments about windows. The windows package works because we ship it with the very latest versions of all of the dependencies.
This sounds amazing to me - that it's harder to find *all* the deps for Linux than it is for Windows. Is it simply because you are new to the game or is it something Linuxy? Is it not possible to get a listing of the deps from Synaptic or from some fancy gnu command (lsof perhaps)? I dunno, sounds odd. I could see this as yet another strength of the (one ring) Windows approach, everything under a single API etc, and Linux's problem is it's wildly scattered libraries and morphologies etc. I could, but I don't know my ass from my elbow :)
I mean, if the guys who actually code inkscape cannot determine the exact list of dependencies it needs then how the heck can anyone else? :D
People often claim that we are wasting resources by not sharing dependencies with other apps. But no one has stepped up to fix the problem. You are making the opposite argument for linux. Likewise no one has show enough interest to fix the problem.
Well, I reckon a single tar.gz file with *all* the needed files to run inkscape would be a major boon. I think that's why Firefox and Thunderbird have done so well. I know it's a waste of space and resources and the (very bad) programmer in me screams in terror at the thought, but ... it really will make life easier on those like me who find themselves up the creek so to speak.
Lastly, I'd like to point out that Fedora is meant as a leading edge distro and Core 3 is aged. How can you expect bleeding edge software to compile and run without issue on a system that is already a few releases behind.
I know this and I am constantly tempted to jump to newer distros. I also resist because I am "at home" - you know - comfortable with my current setup. I resist because it just seems too overwhelming to have to move to an entire new O/S every six months! Even Ubuntu would have me doing that! I trust to my yum (apt) repos and update cycle to keep me topped-up according to the voodoo requirements of the system. Still, point taken - another reason why I would love a static solution to the inkscape thing.
The Inkscape project tries as much as possible not to leave users behind, but there come times when we must move forward and require newer versions of our dependencies. A larger problem is that we have no active participants running Core 3. So it receives no testing.
I wonder what users of inkscape use what distros? You should run a poll or something. Still, I'm game to test things and report.
I hope this answers some of your questions. And I invite you to step forward and fill the voids that you have uncovered.
Thanks Aaron, I will do what I can. Right now that looks like I might have to either upgrade/switch my distro (ouch) or try compiling inkscape again (ouch) so I will probably just go to bed!
PS - is the www.inkscapeforums.com part of inkscape or an indie website, because I reckon there should be a link from inkscape.com to the forum, for a lot of people forums are very good ways of solving problems and storing solutions. I found the blender forums instrumental in learning Blender for example. A wiki somehow does not encourage the same level of discussion, I don't know why.
Donn. South Africa.