>
> Hi all,
>
> I'm having trouble with a terribly slow tar on my RH 5.0. I found that
> RedHat has a fix for this (something with initscripts). It could be found
> in the errata list for Redhat 5.0. I'll install it tonight and it will
> probably solve the problem.
>
> However it just raises a question since I don't quite understand the fact
> that there are so many distributions for Linux. It seems to me like this
> slow tar bug is a really RH 5.0 only problem. Is that true? How can that be?
>
> As I understand a distribution is simply put a collection of several Linux
> software packages that are each freely available, maybe enhanced with an
> installer and some user-friendly configuration utils. Right? If this is so,
> then how can the tar problem be a specific RH 5.0 problem, since RH 5.0
> uses commonly available software? Or is it conceivable (maybe even likely)
> that other distributions have the same problem?
>
>
> Greetings,
> Mark
>
>
Mark,
I don't know about this particular bug, but....
Here are some reasons a package may contain a bug under one distribution
and not in another:
1) RH5.1 was released before slackware 3.5. It is possible,
(in fact, quite likely), that the two distributions have
different versions of the programs. This is especially true
for programs in the alpha/beta phases, which make up a sizable
chunk of any distribution.
2) One distribution may create a package for program X.
it includes files a, b, c, d, e. On another distribution,
it may include files a, b, f, g, e.
For example:
I recently down loaded an RPM from an RPM repository.
Xboard to be exact. I did an "rpm -ql xboard" on it
to get the file listing. I also did this with the xboard
that came with RH5.1. The listing in the one I downloaded
contained twice as many files as the RH5.1 version,
including other programs which help play gnuchess over
the net.
3) The config files in the RH5.1 version of a package
were written to the liking of the RH people. The config
files for the same package are almost certainly different for
another distribution.
Bottom line: A distribution is not a collection of freely available
packages. Rather, it is a collection of packages made for the
distribution, which happen to be free.
Hope this helps,
Bryan Scaringe
