Debian et al: was re: Mandriva

[Mike Reinehr]

On Saturday 14 May 2005 11:26 am, Collins Richey wrote:
> Quotes from Collins, Lonni, and David in that order
>
> > > > As I mentioned in an earlier post, ManDrivel. I'm not likely to try
> > > > it. Free is where it's at for me, and for the foreseeable future free
> > > > RedRat (read: CentOS) since my work is based on RHEL releases.
> >>
> >> must be nice.  why can't everyone just wise up and use RH/FC to make my
> >> life easier?  ;)
>
> < Because Debian derivatives are so much easier to maintain (no RPM
> < dependency hell), never require reinstalls on "upgrades" (which are
> < continuous anyway), and with over 18,000 packages, building from
> < source is rare.  And the Debian packages just work together and rarely
> < have bugs (they're rather anal about that).
>
> < The above has been the norm for many years.
>
> Sigh, Debian again. I've recently tried Ubuntu again, and I'm rather
> well impressed, but I still don't understand the Debian setup (double
> sigh). Ubuntu has a nice howto for getting various common programs
> that are not part of the standard release. Works pretty slick, ugh
> almost. On CentOS I got the mplayer stuff and codecs using the Dag
> repos, and it just worked (tm), but when I tried the recommended
> packages for Ubuntu/Debian, I got an mplayer that would work for some
> file types and not for others. Few things piss me off more than
> getting an email from friends with some sort of Windows crappy media
> format (TM) that I can't play on Linux. That happens seldom with the
> mplayer I have on CentOS.

	First, there definitely is a "Debian" way of doing things. :-) But, there are 
some good sources of help to get started: http://www.debian.org/doc/
In particular, the Installation Manual, the Reference and the Policy Manual. 
But, after two or three years, I'm still learning.

	Second, IIRC, and I haven't done this in a while, mplayer format support is 
compiled in and you have to have all the libraries available at compile time. 
So, if something comes along later you're just out of luck, without going 
back and compiling a newer version. I'm guessing your difficulty with a 
binary version derives from the choices made by whomever compiled it.

> Also, a current peeve, since I run IceWm as my "desktop" (please,
> let's not do the wm vs. desktop discussion again) of choice, I was not
> able to find a deb package for bbrun which is one of the essentials
> with IceWm or any "desktop" that does not provide a "run" function
> since I don't like updating menus every five minutes. I know, why
> don't I just run XFCE? Probably because IceWm is a little lighter
> weight (starts up quicker) and I don't need a file manager and session
> management stuff.

	You might want to consider Libranet (they just released a brand new version, 
3.0). It's Debian-based and comes with virtually everything that you'd ever 
want -- 5 CD's or a 3.2GB DVD image. Plus, IceWm is their default window 
manager. (They also include a half-dozen others including, of course, KDE & 
GNome.)

	A couple other nice features are a really good installer and the ability to 
select from one of a half-dozen installation profiles: minimal, server, 
desktop, etc.

> Also, the RPM hell of years ago (pure RPM distros) is pretty much gone
> with yum or the apt for rpm stuff. I hear that the apt for RPM stuff
> is poorly maintained. I haven't had to chase a dependancy (I've had to
> chase a few packages) since I put up CentOS. The question is still
> outstanding whether I will be able to upgrade from CentOS4 to CentOS5
> in a few years. The way in which RedRat screws around with things in
> Fedora makes me doubt it. Also RedRat has a habit of choosing not to
> support things that are a standard elsewhere - xfs and other
> filesystems, other important kernel functionality, and xfce are good
> examples. CentOS is making available a plus repository (and of course
> there's Dag), but the RedRat (CentOS) base is a bit slim for my
> tastes.
>
> OTOH, RedRat is ideal for engineering users such as I support. All
> they need is a stable C toolchain for developing embedded code. Some
> of them never run outside of Init Level 3. None of them care about the
> latest KDE or GNOME. We're looking at RHEL3 or 4, when problems with
> OpenLDAP are resolved, but most users are still RH9 and reporting no
> problems.
>
> Like most large corporations, my employer is a firm believer in
> licenses (someone to kick around) with large suppliers, RedRat in this
> case. They wouldn't touch Debian or CentOS on a bet even though they
> never use the RedRat support that they pay for. They also pay (through
> the nose) for ClearCase and SlickEdit. That's not going to change.
> Even the choice of server hardware is based on less than logical
> decisions. Someone higher up in the food chain doesn't like how the
> Dell rack mount cases open, so rumor is we'll be switching to HP!

	Libranet is commercial, with paid installation support, and ongoing support 
available from a number of sources.

> The one thing no one can match (gentoo is trying) is the massive
> number of packages available with Debian.
>
> As a final gripe. I have not bothered to join any Debian mailing
> lists, but I've heard from others that they have a positive aversion
> to newbies, and  that gets my dander up. Also, Debian being more
> popular than some distros, I'm sure the traffic volume is higher than
> I would prefer.

	True. I haven't ever posted to the Debian User List. The most I've done is 
Google it for help. The few times I haven't been able to figure something 
out, I've come to this list. :-)

> End of ramble.

Cheers!

cmr
-- 
Debian 'Sarge': Registered Linux User #241964
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"More laws, less justice." -- Marcus Tullius Ciceroca, 42 BC
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