> > > > However, the debian package management is so slick, freebsd's doesn't compare >(although it is good). To me it's worth it to use debian over any benefits of >freebsd, just for the packagemanegment. Debian's apt/dpkg system is truly amazing. Definitely worth checking out to see how easy it *could* be. Of course, for the system to work properly, the packages are more complex and have to be *more* correct. This could explain the sometimes *old* packages in "stable" Debian releases (perl-5.005 in "testing"?). IMHO, this is a problem with binary distribtions. (Although it IS fast and easy.) By contrast, (Free|Open)BSD uses a "ports" system to add to the system. The "ports" system is implemented as a directory tree (usually /usr/ports) which contains Makefiles and OS specific patches. The Makefiles contain more than compile time info, they also contain dependency info, who maintains the port, where the original source can be downloaded, etc. This would seem to be easier to maintain than several binary package like mysql-client, mysql-server, mysql-doc, libmysql, libmysql-dev, etc. That having been said, the BSDs also have the pkg_[add|delete|info] functions to install binary packages. In fact, after a port is built, the files are archived into a .tgz "package", and installed from that "package". And Debian also has methods for creating packages from source. It's a bit more trouble than with the BSDs, but you can get the relevent Makefiles (actually debian/rules) and patches for up-to-date code from the Debian web site. It would be nice if Debian had a public CVS interface. What would be really nice, would be a cd with base installers for Debain and [Open|Free]BSD, and some of the more common third party source packages. I have noticed one caveat of installing packages from source with Debian, in that it expects the tarball to be named package-release.orig.tar.gz, while *few* people publish tarballs as package-release.orig.tar.gz, and a mv changes the checksum of the package, so 'apt-get source' will download the "official" .orig tarball, thinking you don't have the file it's looking for. Not really a big deal, I could probably use some flag to ignore the checksums, but it's kinda annoying. > > Redhat's packagemanagment is better than microsofts. That's all I'll say > > about that. IMHO (and I know it's not an OS) CPAN is the best package management system *ever* created. > > Does anyone know if Zope can be installed on FreeBSD? http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/ports/www/zope <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> PS What I find interesting about BSD vs Linux is that Linux distros are GPL liscensed, which requires availability of the source, but most distros* only have the kernel source as an optional package. OTOH BSDs are under the BSD liscense scheme, which does NOT require publishing of source, but the BSDs* come with source for the entire OS. *On the first cd.
