Dependencies
I have a bunch of code that require a few libraries such as cURL and LUA to build. I'd like to make the installation as simple as possible and run on quote a few operating systems. Would it be best just to list the dependencies and have then install it or provide the correct version of each library in the download since they're GNU licensed?
IMHO, the Linux convention is absolutely horrible from a configuration management and quality assurance perspective, so I much prefer every app to be bundled with their dependencies.
I'd like to stay away from having a separate distro per platform at this time since since it's so early on. Another reason is because you're able to develop for multiple platforms per OS. For example, on Mac, you can develop Mac, iOS, Android/OUYA, and possibly PS Vita (assuming it's the full SDK) games. So for this, I'd like to have it to where people can just drop their code where they feel comfortable, and drag and drop files.
I definitely agree with NightCreature83's suggestion about providing all libraries. This concerns me with Linux, however, since there are so many different distros of that OS, and it seems commonplace, from my experience, to build the libraries from source using that specific distro's source code repository (generally through apt-get install, etc) so the binaries match up with the OS's 'dialect'. I'm assuming that some distros of Linux have modified kernels, but I'm quite new in this area!
Having an install script for Linux was something I think would be a good idea. That's something I'll need to learn how to do when I have free time.
One thing I've done in the past, and it's probably bad practice, but if I have to install any development DLLs such as glu32, glew32.dll, etc, I'd just add them into my Windows' system/system32 directory. I understand that could be malicious by sticking foreign DLLs into, but it was a sandbox environment. I'd like to have some way of Visual Studio just to drop the necessary DLLs into the executable's directory for the release build to automate things. It seems easy enough, but that's yet another responsibility my engine would require developers using it. It's a small step developers could overlook --and that goes for me too! lol
I'd like to stay away from having a separate distro per platform at this time since since it's so early on. Another reason is because you're able to develop for multiple platforms per OS. For example, on Mac, you can develop Mac, iOS, Android/OUYA, and possibly PS Vita (assuming it's the full SDK) games. So for this, I'd like to have it to where people can just drop their code where they feel comfortable, and drag and drop files.
I definitely agree with NightCreature83's suggestion about providing all libraries. This concerns me with Linux, however, since there are so many different distros of that OS, and it seems commonplace, from my experience, to build the libraries from source using that specific distro's source code repository (generally through apt-get install, etc) so the binaries match up with the OS's 'dialect'. I'm assuming that some distros of Linux have modified kernels, but I'm quite new in this area!
Having an install script for Linux was something I think would be a good idea. That's something I'll need to learn how to do when I have free time.
One thing I've done in the past, and it's probably bad practice, but if I have to install any development DLLs such as glu32, glew32.dll, etc, I'd just add them into my Windows' system/system32 directory. I understand that could be malicious by sticking foreign DLLs into, but it was a sandbox environment. I'd like to have some way of Visual Studio just to drop the necessary DLLs into the executable's directory for the release build to automate things. It seems easy enough, but that's yet another responsibility my engine would require developers using it. It's a small step developers could overlook --and that goes for me too! lol
apt-get install doesn't do any compiling it only gets and installs *.deb packages for you which are all precompiled.
You should never ever copy anything into the system, system32 or SySWOW64 directories in windows, unless it is through an official installer, read up on dll hell. If you really want to distribute your own versions of these dlls, put the next to the executable as the dll loader will look in that directory before any other one. Currently all dependencies are installed in WinSxS (side-by-side installation of dlls) and you really don't want to mess around in that directory on your own.
You need to look into installers as they can take care of all these dependencies for you, and kick off the correct redistributable installers as well. If you want VS to place the right dlls into your exes build directory look into post build steps for VS.
