> I guess that's why I really appreciate the Debian policy, although it > must make life hard for maintainers.
Sounds similar to the discipline that would be required for the FreeBSD ports system. > I haven't used ports all that much. I switched back after learning why > BSD-style options were called that way. But apt-get makes it really easy > to get precompiled and source: > > apt-get install <foo> to get the binaries, > apt-get source <foo> to get the source. Hmmm... looks nifty, and even simpler than FreeBSD ports. Is apt-get built on top of dselect? A long time ago when apt was not yet around, I heard a lot of grumbling about how dselect was such a pain to use. > While RPMs are supposed to be easier to roll (just ask William), the > strict Debian policy helps improve package quality. Most packages have > well-defined relationships to other packages (in so many different > ways!), and I find that the configuration scripts often included by Debian > packagers are very helpful. Slackware tarballs are quite easy to roll too it turns out, it's just that the process wasn't adequately documented. > Different distros even declare different dependencies, so sometimes it's > hard to use packages from another distro. perl-base? No perl-base on > Redhat, I think. It's a Mandrake thing. Yeah, inconsistent dependencies are why I shied away from rpm. They made life harder than not having dependency checking at all. My current philosophy is to eschew automated dependency checking (which the minimalist Slackware tarball approach does not support last time I checked) and learn the dependencies yourself. That way you are in control no matter what distro you are working under. As long as you are able to _cleanly_ install and uninstall packages with a single command, managing dependencies is not as big of a headache (in theory). _ Philippine Linux Users Group. Web site and archives at http://plug.linux.org.ph To leave: send "unsubscribe" in the body to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe to the Linux Newbies' List: send "subscribe" in the body to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
