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It is easy to create distro-independent binaries. Why it is done so seldom is unknown to me, but you can find binary distro-independent packages. You will however have to handle dependencies manually in most cases.
Compatibility for linux distributions are a non-issue if the distributions ship with the correct libraries. Of course, in order to hold down the size of the system, some distributions tend to take shortcuts, ruining this compatibility. That of course is extremely annoying. But so far I've encountered no compatibility problems with LFS, Gentoo, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu. I wonder how the situation is for Suse and Mandriva. They should work equally well.
When complaining about lack of compatibility among mobile phones, one has to remember that the platforms are different, and problems in porting software from one platform to another is bound to exist. Expecting otherwise would be naïve, at best.




Member since:
2006-06-14
Compatibility was always one of my biggest problems with linux, my friends that use linux always had problems with programs running on diferent distros, they would only be able to put them work if they could find a port, if not, sometimes the source code wasn't good enought :S
If this happens in the current cellphones with linux, well i will stick to Simbian, i have a N70 and i simply love it. Undreads and counting of aplications that run perfectly, Turbo MSN, SmartMovie, Virtual Radio, all of them work perfectly and they are platform compatible.