Why don't some developers provide installers?

[ssj6akshat]

Some come as .tar.gz but do not need to be compiled.Just extract and play like Gish.Can you PM me the linux archive?

[3rdalbum]

If I compile a program on my x86 computer on Linux, I can't run that precompiled version on a computer that uses an ARM CPU, or a PowerPC CPU, or anything except an x86 CPU.

Source code is the lowest-common-denominator - you can compile source code to run on any CPU that Linux supports. But a binary, a precompiled package - forget it.

[handy]

Some distros have a repository with the binaries & for source, for both x86 / x86_64 & more.

I don't want installers though, as a good package manager is just that & more.

[m4tic]

you bought a 2d game. Nice

[steveneddy]

That game is worse than Facebook.

[madjr]

That game is worse than Facebook.

why so, i see good reviews

anyway the op should at least open a thread in their forums

[-grubby]

Honestly, they probably didn't have the time/will/whatever to make the packages, so they just give you the source and let you compile it.

[lisati]

It's just easier to plop the source down and make the user take care of dependencies than looking around trying to make sure the dependencies are met for each distribution they wanna' get it on.

Honestly, they probably didn't have the time/will/whatever to make the packages, so they just give you the source and let you compile it.

+1 to both the above!

There's also the possibility that the developer is happy that they've got the program up and running, and is keen to get onto the next project.

[Old Marcus]

Since they could be bothered to compile for Windows, why couldn't they compile for Linux? ok, you might have to do it twice for deb/rpm, but it's not that bad, surely? Not all of us are CLI ninjas these days.

[snova]

Because packaging is a different skill than programming, and not every developer has it. The odds of a project having someone who is able to package for the distro you happen to use goes down with the size of the project, especially if your distro is anything less than common.

and just leave tar archives? just curious seeing how much easier it is to istall games from sh, bin, or deb.

Also, installers suck...

Since they could be <snip> to compile for Windows, why couldn't they compile for Linux? ok, you might have to do it twice for deb/rpm, but it's not that bad, surely? Not all of us are CLI ninjas these days.

... and binaries are easily made incompatible and unusable from the slightest difference between two distros, or even two releases. And that goes up with the complexity of the project (or the number of shared libraries it links against).