Should I provide ./autogen.sh to build for end users?

Question

I've started a new project in git and use ./autogen.sh and xfce4-dev-tools to generate configure script and others files.

I'm wondering if it's a bad idea to only provide git release or I need to create dist tarball also?

Answer 1

A distribution tarball is easier to use but possibly limited to a certain Linux distribution and sometimes even to a certain version of said distribution.

autogen.sh makes things more flexible but at the cost of needing a more complex setup before you can use your project.

My approach to this problem is to have a script which

1. installs all dependencies or at least directs people to where they can get them
2. creates all system specific files
3. builds the whole project
4. runs the tests
5. creates distribution tarballs

I use the same script to build the dist tarballs, so the script is a) useful and b) executed often to keep it healthy.