Re: diffutils-2.8.7 installation problems

[Bob Proulx]

Paul Eggert wrote:
> "Jovanka Pangestu" <address@hidden> writes:
> > I am having trouble getting diff to work using the depot downloaded.
> 
> Sorry, I don't know what a "depot downloaded" is.

I am guessing (as Paul did too) that Jovanka is trying to run
someone's precompiled and prepackaged thingy.  But the packager used
shared libraries and did not specify the dependencies correctly to the
package.  So only part of it was installed.

That scares me to think of what other problems they will have caused
too.  I would avoid poorly packaged software like that because it is
bound to cause more and more trouble.  If they missed basic things
like that what else did they miss?

> > After I install the depot using swinstall,
> 
> Nor do I know what "swinstall" is.
> 
> I'll guess it is an HP-UX packaging thingy.  In that case, you'll need
> to go to whoever supplied that package to you, and ask them what the
> prerequisites are.

Correct.  'swinstall' is one of the programs which are part of HP's
Software Distributor software packaging tools.  There are a whole set
of 'sw' this and 'sw' that such as swinstall and swlist and so forth.
It has many similar capabilities to other package managers.  However I
avoid using it when possible because it is terribly slow and generally
feature poor.  It is just not in the same league as more modern
software such as dpkg or rpm.

> As far as I can see it's not a GNU diffutils issue per se.

Agreed.

The best bet is to grab the source for diffutils and compile it
yourself.  Then you will know what you are getting.  It compiles
easily and you will probably have less trouble doing it that way than
trying to use someone else's precompiled file splat.

Bob