I disagree. I think you're looking at this backwards. Almost any bootable install disk can get you to a command prompt. From there, you can install whatever you'd like.
RPMs are a Red Hat package, so why would SUSE support it? Same with Debian's DEBs, or Gentoo's Emerge scripts. These things are what differentiates the various distributions. If you want to end up with Mandrake, you need to install from Mandrake disks. If on the other hand, you want a distro neutral final system, then pretty much any bootable disk will work. You boot it, at the command prompt, DL everything you need/want, compile it as you wish, and install it wherever you'd prefer. You'd need to use the boot disk's compiler initially, but you could end up with a different one for the running system if you'd like. Other than the different package managers, there is little to differentiate between the different distros. I mean, if you download KDE3 from source, and compile it. The method is the same on SUSE, Gentoo, Debian, and Red Hat. on the other hand, if you download the RPMs, you're right, they won't install on SUSE or anything except Red Hat. But that's only because the RPMs are designed for a particular distribution and often only a particular version of that distribution. That's how the different distros differentiate themselves. Red Hat can brag they they're easy to use because you just download the RPMs, and type rpm -i package. Deb/Gentoo will say heck, why bother wasting time searching for, and then downloading them. Just type apt-get/emerge package. But if you ignore the package managers, and go to source, the same source filescan be downloaded, configured, and made on any machine (including different architectures). And you can compile on one machine for another. So if your Caldera box is a 486/66, and your Sorceror box is an Athlon 3000+, then you can use the Sorceror box to compile the packages on the Caldera box. No, Sorceror probably won't build you an easily installable package, but it can compile from source in exactly the same manner as it would happen on the Caldera box (plus some extra steps to chroot, and stuff.). These aren't limitations on the distributions, rather on the method a person has chosen to install with. Kev. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Garth Meisel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, February 01, 2003 7:44 PM Subject: Re: (clug-talk) Calgary-based linux advocate > All I meant was that "No particular distro" goes out of it's way to help > install any other version of *nix from the very beginning. In other words, > to the best of my knowlege: Redhat does not support Mandrake installation > methods and MDK does not support SuSE methods and SuSE doesn not support > Caldera etc etc etc. Hope that clears it up. : ) > As for Knoppix, I don't run it. I never have. I have no need to. > A similar Knoppix link is http://www.zelow.no/floppyfw/ > I'm not sure what you mean by the question though either so this is my best > response. :? > > > > On Sun, 2003-02-02 at 11:03, Garth Meisel wrote: > > > general. So, now, I think yes if you're talking about Knoppix, but I > > > think each distro is still too selfish and self wanting to let what you > > > mentioned happen. > > > > What do you mean by this? > > > > Jesse > > >
