Installing dev libraries is problematic for users and upgrades

[i30817]

Probably installing qt5* and libqt5* in the qmc2 build (i didn't check the mame build) isn't the best thing ever if the user has a gtk system.

For these problems, there is always checkinstall if make uninstall is unavailable in the makefiles (and it is). It has the further advantage of not requiring the sources to uninstall (though you probably should want to enumerate only the libraries that qmc2 actually uses, not sure if it's smart enough to check them all for only the needed ones).

I'm pretty much going to do a check install build only to apt-get purge qmc2 qt5* libqt5* after a distro upgrade (where i got rid of the other qt depending packages and got left with a broken qmc2), so it can be quite troublesome

[VR51]

I set OneUp! to install qt5 this way to resolve other dependency issues that cropped up. I have an idea to try that will allow the user to select whether to install QT4 or QT5 with or without the extras. In my own experience QMC2 failed to build without the extras.

I will look into checkinstall.

[i30817]

It's actually normally done with a combination of checkinstall and fakeroot and pbuilder (or similar 'light' containers). This still requires a proper package with correct dependencies though. For instance to test launchpad builds one can do what i did a few years ago and use a command like this question has..

Though at that point, you might as well be setting up a ppa (which was what i was doing). Since this script whole thing is about building from source maybe i'm being irrational. But i feel there must be a better solution by now that filters out 'just the right dependencies' from a chaotic mess like qt5* libqt5* qttools-dev etc without having to be explicit.

If you don't know of any, no problem, but i'd suggest 'at least' bothering upstream qmc2 so their Makefile permits make uninstall. Then the user can do the reverse remove of the libraries listed and check if anything important that also depended on them gets uninstalled and reinstall it after.

[VR51]

The dependencies that are installed are installed with apt-get. What I could do is track the installed packages then change the 'install' option to 'uninstall' or at least log them in the script. They are not managed by make/install at all so their removal should be fairly easy given that apt tracks them anyway.

The PPA option is one I looked at. Then I discovered https://snapcraft.io. Until I needed to take time out to holiday I was working on a MAME snap but builds failed. Would have progressed to a QMC2 snap after MAME; still will eventually.

Have you looked at snaps? Snaps are closer to your intended end point of a self contained installer.

Here is the MAME snap I was working on until I walked off to recharge. Maybe you can help with this and then we can do similar for QMC2 https://github.com/VR51/mame/tree/master/snap

[i30817]

I honestly only tried flatpak for a app that is not on the repositories and i dislike these formats because of download bloat. 100 mbs downloads (even if they amortize after install of one of them of the same series) are not my idea of a good time.

[VR51]

Be similar with a snap, I reckon. I edited my above reply as you commented. Sorry about that.