Hi, > Ok, everyone missed my point regarding static RPM's...it's the CHOICE > that matters. I didn't say to eliminate dynamically linked RPM's, just > add the static ones, so people have a choice. Plus, as I stated, on a > minimal install, maybe keep those RPM's statically linked and the
The problem is, if the Mandrake developers are busy keeping up with static RPM compiles it will either lower the number of available packages or the most recent versions of such (less choice). As I and others have said also, the right way to solve this problem isn't static libraries. Look at Windows even - if I install a program that needs QuickTime, it isn't _statically_linked_ to QuickTime, but launched a seperate QuickTime installer. Ideally, if the user uses the urpmi or a GUI tool, they should never deal with the individual packages. Also, think about it this way - Mandrake 8.3 comes out with statically linked QT 3.1.1 (that doesn't exist yet), and it turns out QT has an annoying bug - oops, now we need to redownload KDEBASE, KDELIBS, and any other packages that use QT statically. That's when the user gets angry and goes back to Windows. > As for a Debian/Mandrake distro, just because Mandrake has taken the few > good Debian by-products and put them to good use in their distro does [...] > distinct and significant advantage of a deb package over an RPM I'm not > aware of it. Could someone please enlighten me, otherwise this whole > subject is moot. Well, deb's are easier to package (trust me, I've made both debs and RPM's), have more detailed dependencies and conflict tracking (IIRC), and stuff like that. The real beauty is apt-get though. For example if I want to install KDE in urpmi, I must denote each section of KDE that I wish to install - even if I want all of the KDE packages that are available. With apt-get I can type "apt-get install kde." That's it. Oh, and if you add something like a new kernel, it will automatically offer to update LILO, preserve existing lilo.conf settings, and so forth. Apt-get is very interactive. Another cool thing. See a bug in the system? You can type "bug [packagename]" to find out about it. If no one has reported that bug, you just type "bugreport [packagename]" and it will take care of loading Mozilla to report the bug (using the Debian Bug Tracker, the same tool KDE uses). Oh, and also friends of mine using Debian never have to reinstall the system. True system upgrading actually works. A friend of mine went from libc5 to glibc6, a.out to elf, and so forth without ever starting from scratch - he just ran "apt-get dist-upgrade" and sat back while it updated. Obviously Mandrake could add these functions, and the many others I'm forgetting to Mandrake and RPM, but why not take the fully stable finished product and let MDK developers work on stuff the UI stuff that Debian people can't seem to do (after a recent chat with a Debian developer, btw, he has started porting Menudrake to Debian because he thinks it's a nifty idea). Anyway, I'm not trying to turn this into a Mandrake vs. Debian thread, I was just thinking if Mandrake could take advantage of the features of Debian that'd be really cool. Legacy RPM's would still work, much of the system config stuff is already set to work... so if it was timed with the move to gcc 3.x and KDE3 much of the system would have to be rebuilt anyway. -Tim -- ---------------------------------------------------------------- Timothy R. Butler [EMAIL PROTECTED] Universal Networks http://www.uninet.info Christian Portal and Search Tool: http://www.faithtree.com Open Source Migration Guide: http://www.ofb.biz ============= "Christian Web Services Since 1996" ==============
