Ruby Install vs. Gimp Install: how to make them both happy?

Hello all,

I’ve installed ruby via the 1-click installer with defaults selected
(on a very clean win2000 machine), then I went to install GIMP, which
needs the latest GTK+2 runtime as a prerequisite. On installing the
GTK+2 i get this error:
[snip->]
Setup has found some DLL files, which may conflict with programs that
rely on GTK+ 2. To prevent such conflicts, Setup can automatically
rename these files.
Note: Renaming these files may cause other programs to stop working.
If you encounter such program, please read the FAQ at <
http://www2.arnes.si/~sopjsimo/gimp/faq.html> for possible solutions.

Following is the list of files, which would be renamed:
c:\ruby\bin\iconv.dll
c:\ruby\bin\zlib1.dll
If you choose to rename these files, their extension will be changed
to .dll.off.
[<-snip]

and then i’m given the option of renaming these dlls.

looking through the GIMP install FAQ documentation I see this:
[snip->]
Q* The GIMP installer informs me about conflicting DLL and
recommends to rename them. What does this mean?
A* Another program installed libraries with the same name as those
used by Gimp where they don’t belong. If these files are incompatible
with the libraries required by the GIMP, the GIMP may either fail to
load, or work incorrectly.

Q* I allowed the installer to rename conflicting DLL files, now

another program stopped working. What should I do?
A* Find the DLL file(s) the program is complaining about (it will
have the extension .dll.off), copy it to the program’s directory and
remove the .off extension.
[<-snip]

unfortunately I don’t understand enough of this ‘dll hell’ to
understand the implications or what I should do here. Are any of you
able to share your wisdom as to what i should do?

thanks soooo much for the help!

-Michael

On Apr 15, 2006, at 1:44 PM, Michael Prior wrote:

[snip->]
Q* The GIMP installer informs me about conflicting DLL and
recommends to rename them. What does this mean?
A* Another program installed libraries with the same name as those
used by Gimp where they don’t belong. If these files are incompatible
with the libraries required by the GIMP, the GIMP may either fail to
load, or work incorrectly.

I find this difficult to believe. Why should C:\ruby\bin even be in
the path that the GIMP looks for DLLs in? I feel like this is a bug,
either in the ruby installer (it puts that path into the windows
equivalent of ld.conf) or in the gimp (it’s just scouring the hard-
drive unnecessarily). Have you tried NOT renaming the the files and
continuing to install the GIMP to see what happens?

Logan C. wrote:

On Apr 15, 2006, at 1:44 PM, Michael Prior wrote:

[snip->]
Q* The GIMP installer informs me about conflicting DLL and
recommends to rename them. What does this mean?
A* Another program installed libraries with the same name as those
used by Gimp where they don’t belong. If these files are incompatible
with the libraries required by the GIMP, the GIMP may either fail to
load, or work incorrectly.

I find this difficult to believe. Why should C:\ruby\bin even be in
the path that the GIMP looks for DLLs in? I feel like this is a bug,
either in the ruby installer (it puts that path into the windows
equivalent of ld.conf) or in the gimp (it’s just scouring the hard-
drive unnecessarily). Have you tried NOT renaming the the files and
continuing to install the GIMP to see what happens?

Because the %PATH% is searched for DLL’s this is correct behavior.

The only thing you should neeed to do is make sure that the Gimp’s path
appears before Ruby’s in the %PATH% environment variable. Windows looks
in the folder containing the executable before looking in the %PATH% for
DLLs.

Ruby keeps the DLL’s in the same folder as the executable, Ruby should
alsays find it’s own copy.

Gimps appear first in the path because you may have external
applications trying to link against it.

A better all around approach for the Ruby installer should of been just
to require the install of GTK+ if you wanted to support it.

On 4/16/06, Michael G. [email protected] wrote:

A better all around approach for the Ruby installer should of been just
to require the install of GTK+ if you wanted to support it.

Thankfully, Ruby’s installer doesn’t have GTK+. iconv.dll is used for
localization support; zlib1.dll is used for compression support.

c:\ruby\bin\iconv.dll
c:\ruby\bin\zlib1.dll

The GTK+/GIMP installers are too aggressive on this matter, assuming
that one and only one copy of iconv.dll and zlib1.dll will be
installed on a system.

There are ways around it, though.

-austin