Lennart Sorensen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Source RPMs are a pain to deal with. Debian's sources are a lot > more sane, and debian's tools make life a lot simpler.
Subjective. > The libraries should be packaged too. So you would advocate repacking and rebuilding everything? And when another package is built against a library that it is incompatible with, just deal with it? > Debian actually managed to evolve rather quickly. They are slow to > release because testing that many architectures and that much > software properly takes time. Other distributions have a much > lower bar for "good enough" than debian. Subjective. My points are ... 1. Debian ships multiple kernels, GLibC and other package versions in a single release, quite an undertaking. 2. Red Hat just picks one and sticks with it, backporting as necessary, quite limiting. A ports-based distro allows any combination you can build, not what packagers decided to standardize on or offer options for. As far as the "lower bar" comment, understand that Debian and many other distros "play it safe" and wait for another distro to retarget a new GLibC version, or finally throw the switch that forces ANSI C++ compliance or adopts Mandatory Access Controls (MAC) and puts forth the efforts to integrate such. You can "play it safe" and wait on someone else, or you can "lead" and actually put forth the real, extensive and difficult efforts to actually get something new to work. That's the reality of one distro's history over the last 10 years, and why they also have a "trailing edge" one that is supported for 7+ years, longer than anyone else (for a price, of course, which people pay for). > I wouldn't want to gut the whole system, I only replace the bits > that need to be replaced to get what I want. Of which I have argued can be _significant_ sometimes. If it's "just a few bits" that use existing libraries, etc..., I agree 100%. But when I'm changing out major stacks, no, hell no. > Well debian does modularize some things (like php for example) > which works rather well. Debian does many things that are more flexible than, say, Fedora, with the added efforts required to build multiple versions. But they are still not as flexible as a ports distro. > I still think you are better off with debian's system. What you think or what I think is not what this is about. Apparently you seem to think I'm defending Gentoo or lambasting Debian. Please stop. I don't distro piss like 97% of Linux users. I'm merely pointing out *WHY* some of us are Debian, Fedora *AND* Gentoo users, contributors, etc... ;) > I find most debian source packages very easy to work with an > update. That's great! It's also _subjective_. > And debian's debhelper toosl automate a lot of the dependancy > tracking (like figuring out which libraries what I just built > actually uses and which packages those libraries came from). As do an endless pool of Fedora tools, their build system, etc... I'm not here marketing Fedora or Gentoo, I'm telling you how their approaches work. Please _end_ the Debian advertisement. ;) > I have found it much more efficient to use the package system, > even when updating stuff myself to keep things consistent and > working. Enterprise Configuration Management (ECM) 101, yes, I know, you're preaching to the choir, can we _please_ move past this now? > You have to figure out what library versions you need either way, Not often with a ports approach. > and making the package is a rather small part of the work. I disagree. > I moved from SLS to slackware because SLS wasn't going anywhere. I don't care as it has _nothing_ to do with anything I was talking about. [ I.e., Don't assume you're not talking to someone who _also_ started with SLS and Yggdrasil. Also don't assume you're not talking to someone who isn't a paid and senior member of a Linux distribution, a former Debian maintainer and colleague of founders and contributors across many distributions. ;) ] The thing about history, credentials, knowledge, etc... is that someone _always_ hsa more. > I moved from Slackware to RedHat because RPM package management was > clearly better than Slackware's (and SLS's) system. I don't care and it doesn't have anything to do with the fact that ports-based builds are used for some roles in enterprises. > I moved from RedHat to Debian because Debian's system was clearly > better than RedHat's and to get away from RedHat's many annoying > bugs in their releases. Like? If you quote me Red Hat Linux 5's switch to GLibC 2, then you're just ignorant. People are still complaining about that, not realizing it was the hard efforts of Red Hat that we moved to GLibC 2 -- efforts that other distros "piggy-backed" off of after the work was done. Same can be said about various GCC changes. There ware many issues with GCC 2.8, 2.95.x, etc... People also forget that Red Hat was the official maintainer of GCC at the time people were complaining. Forcing ANSI C++ compliance _broke_ GCC 2.x code (let alone GCC 2.7, 2.8 and 2.95.x C++ implementations conflicted). Today people say SELinux is "broken." What don't they understand about "MAC"? It purposely breaks things! It's not "buggy." > I most certainly won't move to Gentoo ever because ports are > clearly not better than what Debian does, Yet more subjective dribble. LPI is *NOT* about subjective dribble, it's about what enterprises use even if *YOU* do not. That's the definition of a "standards organization." Try being involved with an IEEE subcommittee sometime. ;) > and in fact is more on the list (along with for example the > Pentium 4) of things that are clearly fundamentally > wrong by design. The Pentium 4 was an engineering feat -- completely redesign a core in 18 months when 40+ months is typical. But you wouldn't know the first thing about that. What you define as "fundamentally wrong" is not what others see. You had better open your mind to looking at something differently, or you're just going to be yet another of the 97% of Linux users who piss "brand name" everywhere they go. > You can get good software from BSD, but you sure can't learn how > to make a good user space or package system. Yet more subjective dribble. > I consider that to be a trait of bad developers. I consider people who think "one distro fits all" to be a trait of people who can't realize the problem is different for different people. Leading-edge development is typically done from source within the first 6 months. As things mature, it moves to a packages distro for the next year. As software is released and goes into sustainment, it goes into a backport distro -- up to 7 years! No one distro fits all development, sorry. Been involved with way too many software projects. They may eventually target RHEL for 7+ years of support, but they don't start at RHEL -- or you've wasted 2 years of longevity. > Well if you don't actually want anyone to ever use your code then I > suppose not. I have never worked in a place where that was true. You don't have people running your code in leading-edge development. You're changing things so much that you can't track things. When the architecture is well defined and prototyped, that's when it hits more established and mainstream development and goes into a more ECM controlled distro. In Red Hat terms, that is Fedora -- which is what the next version of RHEL will be based on. > The QA yes, but that doesn't mean you have to throw out everything > else. You throw out anything that is not compatible with the libraries and programs you have chosen. That can be very, very significant at times! ;) Open your mind. Stop Debian distro pissing. Your viewpoint is not the same as everyone inolved with LPI, and we do not subscribe to your definitions of "buggy" and other _subjective_ comments. ;) -- Bryan J. Smith Professional, Technical Annoyance [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://thebs413.blogspot.com -------------------------------------------------- Fission Power: An Inconvenient Solution _______________________________________________ lpi-examdev mailing list [email protected] http://list.lpi.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lpi-examdev
