Hi all,
I think that most people who are on this list know how to compile the
binaries from source. But these competent people ask for RPMs or
Debian packages because they are managing what is installed on their
boxes with a package manager. That might be an egregious assumption,
but I met Martin at TUG 2000, and he strikes me as being very astute
at source code compiling, etc...
In that sense, I guess Debian is good, in this way: I have been told
that one can easily make a package from the compiled sources and then
install that. Now, my source on this thinks everything package
building and/or compiling related is easy, but I don't think he knows
the extent of the teTeX packages and their dependencies, etc...
I have Debian installed on my PowerMac, and am slowly getting oriented
with how Debian package management works (when I can boot my box into
Linux). So I cannot comment on the ease of Debian package building...
Anyway, my point is this: I assume that when one asks for a package,
its not because they are lazy and don't want to compile from source,
it is because they want to have better management of what is installed
on their boxes.
Signing off, and hoping I don't start a flame war.
Tom
