[CLUE-Tech] distro question

[Adam Bultman]

1.  It is source based, but requires very little intervention from me.

>
> I'm not being a nit-pick, I'm actually interested in *your* personal 
> answer to this question: I hear a lot of people say they like 
> "source-based" distros, but I've yet to find a distro that didn't 
> include source (because it's required by the GPL to provide it) 
> packages.  What does going direct from source on your machine buy you 
> other than the *possible* benefits of optimizations like -O3, etc.  
> (An the performance gain isn't always that much.)
>
Redhat, fedora, et al offer 'Source RPMS'.  Ever try to install one?  
It's a pain. You need the -devel packages for everything. Then, you need 
the -devel packages for other things to compile that, and then there's 
no guarantee that those will work.   THAT is my problem with red hat.  
I've tried so many times to use SRPMS. And 98% of the time, they fail. 

When I say 'source based', I do'nt mean 'they offer source code', I mean 
'it is compiled from source'. While I used to be real 'g33k3d' about the 
source and speed, I'm not so much anymore. I've outgrown the speed freak 
thing, and now I just accept that my system is as fast as it is, and 
that if I want it to be faster, I'll buy faster disks, faster CPU, RAM, etc.

More about Red Hat, etc:  I've wanted some programs before.  When Ximian 
came out, I wanted it. Bad. I was sick of gnome, KDE 2.2 sucked, and 
windowmaker... was nice, but not for using all the time.  But Ximian 
required a lot of packages that I couldn't install. So the .only way was 
to install RH 7.2 and click the 'everything' button.  I did that for a 
few installs.  Same with GNUcash. Ever read the web site?  You basically 
can't install it.  (One of the many reasons I hate RMS).


>> 2.  Dependencies are solved automagically.
>
>
> I also question this one: I haven't seen any package-based distros not 
> have this either?  What do you mean?
>
This means:  kdebase requires kdelibs, which requires arts, which 
requires alsa, which requires x, which requires y. Package kernel 
requires ncurses, which requires python, etc.  It goes and installs each 
thing in order, until you have the final completed package installed. 
With Red Hat, this doesn't mean installed programs - you can have 
libraries but not the program. With gentoo, this means you have the 
program.  That's a downfall, but heck - I'll probably use the program 
anyway.  With RedHat, if you want a new program, that doesn't work.  I 
have to go to www.rpmfind.net, find programs, find out it needs 
something else, find it, it's dependencies, etc, etc. I recently did 
this with UltraMonkey. Surprise! There goes 2 hours.

>> 3. I don't have to surf the net to get new packages.
>
>
> This one I understand in the RPM world, but I don't "get" when talking 
> about Debian and maybe SuSE.  They both have incredible amounts of 
> pre-compiled packages and it usually doesn't take very long for 
> someone to create on and put it in the official "unstable" branches of 
> those distros if something new comes along.  (And then it's super-easy 
> usually to backport them if you're not on the "unstable" branches.) ???
>
I ran debian for no less than 6 months at work.  I had to, numerous 
times, find .deb packages and install them by hand.  At that point, I no 
longer see the point of apt-get. Apt-get isn't apt at a..  Furthermore: 
If I enter apt-get hell, it's completely useless. Package X requires 
Package Y, but package Y wasn't completely installed.  Install package 
Y: Failure.  Package Z wasn't completely uninstalled, etc.  Result:  
mke2fs -j /dev/hda1.  No thanks, debian.

>> 4. It doesn't have problems like RPM and APT have (and yes, I know 
>> how to use both).
>
>
> I'm not very versed in Gentoo, but I thought there were problems with 
> getting your USE= flags wrong early-on and then having to force 
> rebuilds of things later if you didn't put everything + the kitchen 
> sink in your first cut at your USE= setup?  (I seem to recall running 
> into that anyway... forgetting to have for example "kde" in there and 
> then adding it later meant that anything that was built before needed 
> to be rebuilt, right?)
>
> Granted USE= is a weird one, and most of the so-called "binary-based" 
> distros include far too many shared libs on most systems that you may 
> not ever use... so I understand the dilemma with that, but it seems to 
> me that it's a shared dilemma with differing approaches to the problem?
>
I haven't touched my USE statement in some time.  I was informed today I 
need to put -alsa in there to get 'emerge -u world' to work again, but 
I'm too lazy.  I make sure my system isn't vulnerable, and that's all I 
really care about.  I updated to KDE 3.2_rc2 or whatever not too long 
ago, but I really don't feel like changing from Windowmaker. I restart 
Xwindows once every 3 weeks, and my system only when I have to.

>> 5.  HArd to install programs (gnucash, mplayer, xine) work fine and 
>> install easy.
>
>
> Hmm... I'm just not sure I have enough thought power tonight I tackle 
> the opposite side of that one... too tired.  :-)
>
>> I'm a lazy person. To get what I want in fedora, Red Hat, slackware, 
>> debian, I have to go through this huge process at install.  It takes 
>> me several hours of annoying tweaking and installing to get those 
>> systems running, only to find I forgot some stuff and have to get it.
>
>
> Um, I think all machine builds are this way... in binary package based 
> installers you select a large chunk of packages and they download 
> forever and eventually the machine's ready to go.  In Gentoo, you 
> download source forever, build forever and then the machine's ready to 
> go... it seems a wash, or perhaps even longer on the Gentoo way of 
> doing things???
>
Long with Gentoo, yep. That I cannot deny. The alpha took what.. 53 
hours to do the first stage of gentoo? But the beauty is, if I want 
anything else, it is there. Nothing besides a command and a cup of 
coffee. My workstation is a 1.5 GHz system that sits at  about 94% idle 
23 hours a day. 

>> With gentoo, I get things started (I can do it by heart on alpha, 
>> sparc, and x86) and I just queue things up.  I start it before I go 
>> to bed, wake up, see things running, do what  I need to do, and by 
>> the end of the day, it's done, I have X running, and all of my apps. 
>> Yes, there is waiting involved.  But c'mon.  I'd rather spend 12 
>> hours waiting for a slew of programs to install than search for 3 
>> hours trying to find all dependencies for fedora, then finding a 
>> working mirror, etc.
>
>
> With Fedora I would definitely agree with you - it drives me insane 
> setting up a Fedora/RedHat desktop system.  But I'm not sure I agree 
> with Debian being any time-line different than Gentoo in the initial 
> setup stages...???
>
>> Some people say that Gentoo is for Mandrake newbies that have moved 
>> on, thinking they are leet (also, that gentoo is the 'rice rocket' 
>> version of the computer geek).  Eh. Whatever. I'm just lazy.
>
>
> Me too.  I'm just asking questions.
>
>> I've run a lot of distros (slack red hat 6 6.2 7.2 7.4 8) suse debian 
>> turbolinux beehive fedora) , and I think I've settled on gentoo. Give 
>> it a whirl; I think you find you'll like it.  I did.
>
>
> I did, and I *liked* it, but I hated waiting for my slow-ish machines 
> to compile all the time.  I think I'd enjoy it better if I had a 
> smoking CPU and fast disks.  (GRIN)
>
> I dunno... to be honest setting up a new machine always sucks if you 
> want all the toys you'd gotten used to on the last machine!  (GRIN)  
> dpkg --get-selections > /tmp/myselections sure helps a lot on Debian 
> though... copy that file to the new box, and tell dpkg 
> --set-selections, launch dselect one time to give it a chance to 
> straighten out any whacky dependencies caused by the machine move 
> (rare), and then hit Update and walk away.
>
> Sounds like we take similar approaches with different tools.
>
> They're all great, aren't they!
>
> (Of course, my BSD-loving friend would dogpile in here and totally 
> change this conversation around... heh... but that's a COMPLETELY 
> different story to tell... and there's just not time tonight...)
>
I have a few VMware systems - openbsd, fc1, rh 7.3, freebsd, plan9 
(doesn't work).  I like to play around a lot, but I can't see putting 
free or openbsd on my actual systems (again, anyway).



Adam

> Nate Duehr, nate at natetech.com
>
> _______________________________________________
> CLUE-Tech mailing list
> Post messages to: CLUE-Tech at clue.denver.co.us
> Unsubscribe or manage your options: 
> http://clue.denver.co.us/mailman/listinfo/clue-tech