[clue-tech] Interesting sidux/smxi news

[Collins Richey]

On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 11:59 AM, Nate Duehr <nate at natetech.com> wrote:
> Collins Richey wrote:
>>
>> Any of you that have tried Sidux (a KDE distro based on Debian sid
>> with locally developed kernels and other extras) have probably used
>> the smxi maintenance utility. Smxi (and a few related utilities)
>> provides a standard, automatic way of performing dist-upgrades, kernel
>> upgrades, holding back packages with nasty dependency chains, relinki
>> proprietary video (and other) modules, cleanup crud, etc.
>
> I thought the packagers who make the packages and the regular package
> managers (and also which repository you choose to use and what goes in it --
> garbage in, garbage out) -- could already do all that!?

Not in a well coordinated fashion. In particular on sid, packages with
incomplete dependency chains appear all to frequently.

>
>> The smxi developer has now severed any ties with Sidux development and
>> is continuing to develop  smxi as a general purpose utility for any
>> Debian or Debian-derived distro. The really interesting news
>> (especially for Dave Anselmi who is a known fan of aptitude)  is that
>> you now have a choice to maintain your system with smxi + aptitude or
>> with smxi + apt-get.
>
> Oh goodie.  More "choice" in a problem that was already not a problem ten
> years ago.  Does it do anything NEW the others don't do, other than keep
> insane packages already in the repository (that shouldn't have been there in
> the first place) out of your local machine?

That's a pretty good accomplishment, if it does nothing else.

>
>> The Sidux developers are strongly opposed to aptitude (apparently
>> based on bad experiences with a less capable aptitude release from
>> several years ago), but recent experimentation with smxi + aptitude
>> have shown that there are few if any problems even on Sidux.
>
> So they couldn't just fix aptitude, noooo... had to create "something new"
> and fork fork fork... as usual.  Linux... (rolls eyes...)!

This is by no means a fork of aptitude, just using aptitude (or
apt-get) as a tool in a coordinated maintenance tool. The target
audience for something like smxi is not your average geek who can
recover from the wrinkles in package management in his sleep but for
the average joe who wants a simpler interface that (almost) always
does the right thing in the right order and suggests recovery
techniques where applicable..


>
>> One side benefit of using smxi with a Debian stable, testing, or sid
>> variant is that you can install a minimal Debian with no X support
>> (using the "business card" iso) then use smxi to
>> install a much less bloated kde, gnome, xfce, etc. desktop with only
>> the desktop packages that most people really need.
>
>
> Which you can also do with every other package manager on the planet for
> Debian.  Does it do something different than those when going for a small
> system?

Not much except for the meta packages.


>
> Not trying to always be so negative,

But you succeeded, as usual.

Maybe someday there will be a Nate distro which does everything just
right. Oh, but that would require actual work instead of carping, and
you've made it abundantly clear .that you want PCs to just work with
no effort on your part.

-- 
Collins Richey
 If you fill your heart with regrets of yesterday and the worries
 of tomorrow, you have no today to be thankful for.