Hi , I think that improving urpmi will be the best issue . And does it possible to make a dbkg->rpm converter it will be great;-)
thanks -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Buchan Milne Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2002 11:20 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Cooker] Mandrake Debian? Timothy R. Butler wrote: > Howdy, > >>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. >> > > Yes, it wouldn't be easy if you moved every single Mandrake package over. > It'd be much easier to move only the stuff that was specific to Mandrake, and > kept woody/unstable for the rest of the fork. Honestly Mandrake would gain > packages by doing this - Debian GNU/Linux consists of over 9,000[*] packages. > That's a lot more than 2000 no matter how you count it. :-) > So the only real advantage of Debian is the number of packages? Mandrake 8.1 (including contribs) was 2957 packages, 4895 with SRPMS, excluding commercial CDs, plf packages, rpmhelp.net packages etc. But you seem to say that all the work that has gone into packaging the majority of the rpms should be dumped? I would much rather spend the same time packaging the additional software .... > > >>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. >> > > Apt-get is a pretty major addition, especially if you add in debconf, and > so forth that apt-get works with. Apt-get, and the promise of never ever > reinstalling a system to upgrade it, is a pretty strong idea. This should be possible with rpm/urpmi (haven't tested it recently), the biggest issue was allowing two different major-versions of the same lib, which has been fixed by mandrake's lib-naming policy. > Converting (using alien) is more of a legacy protection tool rather than a > method of moving gaim.rpm to gaim.deb when there already *is* an gaim.deb. > IMO, such a fork would start at the moment every system tool of Mandrake was > ported. > > >>> 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? >> > > See above. It certainly isn't their installer. ;-) > > >>Except a few more things are broken, mozilla is in danger of being >>dropped etc. >> > > What? I can't seem to spot these broken packages (and every distro has > broken packages, for that matter). BTW, moz is alive and well over in Debian, > 0.9.8 became available the other day infact. > > Ok, it wasn't Mozilla, but it was bugzilla, craft, crossfire-{client,server}, epic4, fvwm95, gmc, gnome-admin, intuitively, kdepim, moon-lander, tkdesk, wine, and xosview http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/02/16/231238&mode=thread >>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 >> > > Apt-get is at least as fast, if not faster. urpmi is fast enough with synthesis. Why change over to apt to gain a few milliseconds? I haven't got a copy of Debian installed, but if you want to prove apt is faster, try install a package from 8.2beta via a local ftp server, and try the same package with apt. I doubt the whole process will differ by any more than 5%, since it is dominated by the downloading of the package. > > >>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). >> > > Hmm... I could never find the CLI tools in Mandrake (probably my fault). > How do you get to them? I missed them after leaving SuSE and the comfort of > YaST. Log in on a text console, and run them as you normally would. mcc should be a good start. > > > >>It was obviously hard enough for them to not consider releasing a third >>version. >> > > Uh, I think that had more to do with politics and a Microsoft investment > that sang the toon of "do what we want if you want this money that will keep > you afloat." > If Corel Linux was successful, they wouldn't have needed the cash from MS. > >>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 >> > > There aren't any, because no one except Corel and Stormix have even really > tried. Of those only Corel had a distribution network like Mandrake and > RedHat. It's also not fair to blame Corel's failures on Debian, after all > their release was woefully outdated, had a heavily modified version of KDE 1, > and so forth. Well, the first bit does seem to be as a result of wanting to use Debian and have stable packages. > Corel killed Corel Linux, IMO. > > >>many commercial distributions are there based on rpm/RedHat that have >>been going for 3 years? Quite a few. >> > > That's really an unfair comparison. RPM and RedHat came before apt-get (and > I believe [?] Debian). How many CUPS-based distros have been going for 3 > years? None. Does that mean Mandrake shouldn't use CUPS for printing? I didn't ask how many urpmi ditros there are, but how many rpm-based distros have been around for 3 years, so you should answer with how many .deb-based distros there are (.deb!=apt). dpkg/.deb~=rpm, urpmi~=apt. > > >>Mandrake it not broken. Why does it need to be fixed? It only needs to >>keep improving at the current rate! >> > > Well, obviously my suggestion was a bit dramatic, but most people that know > both systems know that dpkg is better than RPM. Just because RPM is the > status quo, doesn't mean it's the best way to go in the future. > Tell the LSB that ... I don't see an rpm-based distro changing to dpkg while LSB specifies rpm. Apt is of course another issue. I don't think there is any value in discussing this any further, as all the advantages of going debian-based have been shown to be non-conclusive, except for the greater number of packages available. Buchan (off packaging ...) -- |----------------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
