Timothy R. Butler wrote: > Hi Emmanuel, > I don't think I've done a good job expressing my suggestion. > >>Yes debian has a good and working apt-get system. >>Yes, the number of .deb is very large. >>Yes, the have good ideas (menu and others) >>But we can't witch to deb package: >>-> We have to repackage all rpm >> > > Well, initially, I might suggest most of the packages would be based on > Debian unstable and woody. I would then fork from Debian proper and port > Mandrake specific stuff over (most likely not that hard). RPM's could be > repackages, or when possible converted using alien.
Maybe this would be an option if you can show that all the work in making really good RPMs for Mandrake would not be lost. Maybe if you give us a Mandrake kernel built with dpkg or whatever it you use to make debs (rules?), with all the patches and all the rpm build-time options working, and tell us how long it took, we could estimate how long it would take to migrate the other +-2000 RPMs. I wouldn't mind trying apt out, but all that requires is that someone update the sources lists. Converting to deb does not sound feasible, and (besides packaging quality - which Mandrake would have to take over if there were a fork), the only advantage is supposedly apt. > > >>-> debian is very badly i18n! >> > > Hmm, I can't comment about this, but it wouldn't matter, IMO, since > Mandrake stuff would take care of the interface. > > >>-> install system is a big pain for beginner >> > > That's the beauty of "Mandrake Debian." I'm not suggesting that Mandrake > become Debian, on the contrary, I'm suggesting moving things like Mandrake's > excellent installer and provide a better system. What exactly is better then? > Remember using a Debian base and being Debian are two different things. As > you know Corel, Stormix, and Progeny all had nice GUI installers, and most > likely Xandros will too (oh, not to mention Libranet). The key here is, just > like Mandrake wasn't forced to use everything RedHat used, "Mandrake Debian" > would not be forced to stick with hard to use Debian utilities. > > >>-> If we use the preexistent stable packages, we are going back to MDK-5.2! >> > > I wouldn't suggest that. I would suggest basing such a system on Debian > woody (what I think most people use), and where necessary Debian unstable. > That gives you a system roughly equivelent to Mandrake 8.2 Beta 3. Except a few more things are broken, mozilla is in danger of being dropped etc. > > >>Only one thing who can be changer in mdk for the moment, is urpmi. >>it is to slow, compared to apt-get, and hdlists are too large. (synthesis >>doesn't permit to search for files) >> > > Right. That is why, IMO, it'd be easier to move to a better pre-existant > system than write a new one. As many open source developers like to say - > "don't re-invent the wheel." Debian has good, solid CLI tools, Mandrake has > good, solid GUI tools - together they would make a very slick distro. > It's been shown that this is not an apples-to-apples comparison. urpmi (and even rpmdrake) are VERY fast with synthesis! Mandrake already has solid CLI tools (maybe you don't have a need for them, otherwise you would have seen them?). The only tool that is applicaable to a CLI environment that doesn't run there is diskdrake (AFAIK). > >>For the desktop, I only install mdk -> easy of use for end users who don't >>know a lot about hacking. >> > > Well, I don't think Corel Linux was hard to use, but it was poorly done. > But none the less, it proves Debian doesn't have to be hard if the distro > company chooses not to make it that way. > It was obviously hard enough for them to not consider releasing a third version. Show me one company that has made a success of a commercial Debian release over at least 3 years, and it might be an option. How many commercial distributions are there based on rpm/RedHat that have been going for 3 years? Quite a few. Mandrake it not broken. Why does it need to be fixed? It only needs to keep improving at the current rate! -- |----------------Registered Linux User #182071-----------------| Buchan Milne Mechanical Engineer, Network Manager Cellphone * Work +27 82 472 2231 * +27 21 8828820x202 Stellenbosch Automotive Engineering http://www.cae.co.za GPG Key http://ranger.dnsalias.com/gpg.key
