Benjamin Scott Said:
> On Tue, 13 Feb 2001, Karl J. Runge wrote:
> >> In the past, the [Debian] installs have been truly horrid, but things have
> >> improved to the point where they are only mildly unpleasant.
> >
> > Has it really improved, or have you just gotten used to the bumps in the
> > road and now instinctivly know how to nagivate them?
>
> Given that past Debian installs have failed to even create a valid base
> installation, I would say, yes, they have improved! They are now at the same
> level as, say, Red Hat Linux 3.x. (In fact, the installers of RHL 3.x and
> Debian 2.2 are remarkably similar.) However, I sincerely hope Debian's latest
> attempt to revamp their installer succeeds. They are at serious risk of
> playing catch-up forever.
Hopefully, they're adapting some of the Storm Linux & Progeny install work
(both of which GPL'd their stuff, so Storm Linux lives even if Storm doesn't).
I do agree that the 2.2 install is lousy, it's only saving grace is that it's
better than 2.1 (which was just up from "roll-your-own")
>
> On Tue, 13 Feb 2001, Paul Lussier wrote:
> > However, I think that apt and dpkg are a whole lot better than rpm for
> > installing packages on a single systems and for dealing with dependancies.
>
> I find RPM seems to make the process of simply installing a bunch of
> packages easier than dpkg. dpkg got itself tied into knots W.R.T. dependency
> ordering on large installs when I tried Debian 2.2.
Wow. Care to post some of how you managed that? I've done several installs
of Debian 2.2, never managed that.
>
> On the same note, dpkg makes the conscious design choice that package
> installation is an interactive operation, whereas RPM treats packages more
> like inert data (like tar). Both approaches have their advantages and
> disadvantages, but I strongly prefer the RPM approach. Personal preference.
Definitely a matter of preference (but you get that with Linux :-). Although
Debconf is providing a better means of unattended install (I have a cron job
update my home system, it detects no controlling tty, and makes some
assumptions. I check the cron output that gets mailed to me, and use
dpkg-reconfigure <package> to readjust the settings.
I do hope there's more work integrating the best of both worlds.
>
> I definitely agree that dpkg/APT handle installation dependencies better.
> RPM only checks dependencies; it cannot solve them. External tools such as
> rpmfind/autorpm make things easier, but they still have the air of something
> bolted onto the side, rather than designed into the system. APT is a much
> more comprehensive system.
>
> On Tue, 13 Feb 2001, Jeffry Smith wrote:
> > Assuming your /etc/apt/sources.list is pointed to potato (the current
> > stable), breaking the system is darned near impossible, since stable is,
> > well, stable.
>
> Hah. Hah. Using nothing but the CD-ROMs and dselect, I managed to hose up
> 2.2 pretty damn well. Actually, the system itself was working, it was just
> that dpkg pretty much had heart failure every time I invoked it, which made
> adding to the system rather difficult. I did this by undertaking a massive
> package selection/deselection in dselect right after doing the base install,
> so I just wiped it and started over. Maybe there was a better way to get dpkg
> unwedged, but I was not impressed.
Well, there are, although I'd have to see exactly what you did. One thing
I've noticed is that dselect is one of the hardest tools to use. I use apt,
console-apt, aptitude, or gnome-apt instead. Haven't had a major problem (as
long as I didn't start snagging too much from unstable, but that's a different
problem).
>
> I guess, ultimately, dpkg has too much state for my tastes. An RPM package
> is either installed or it isn't, just like a file is either present or isn't.
> dpkg has selected but uninstalled packages, installed but unconfigured
> packages, configured but deselected packages, unconfigured reinstalled coaxial
> shielded packages, dyslexic agnostic Christian packages, etc., etc. I found
> it too over-engineered and fragile a system in that respect.
To each their own. Some like the features, some don't. Although, I admit, I
haven't found too much use for the dyslexic agnostic Christian packages,
merely using the animistic unistalled preinstalled reinstalled packages ;-)
jeff
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