Re: RH Veteran is now a Debian Newbie
> Back when I used RedHat I always found it to be a pain the way you
> have to manually track down, and rebuild, package depedencies.
>
> | So I thought I'd try debian as it seems a little more consistent.
> | Is this true?
>
> Debian includes all of its packages in one place, and automatically
> builds all of them. Using apt (aptitude is a good visual front-end)
> you won't have to track down dependencies of a given package when you
> install or upgrade.
>
However, from reading the APT HOWTO it does not appear to be easy to escape the
dependency system.
For example, I need to install postfix SASL + TLS for SMTP_AUTH which is not
supported by default. You need to create custom packages. On Redhat I used the
following description:
http://postfix.state-of-mind.de/patrick.koetter/smtpauth/
I just removed the existing MTA, built new RPMs with the right options and
installed them ignoring whatever dependecy other packages may have had.
If I use debian it sounds like using custom packages is more difficult. I'll have
to create a file with equivs-contol and then edit it. That's not so bad but
knowing what to put in it bothers me.
Mike
--
A program should be written to model the concepts of the task it
performs rather than the physical world or a process because this
maximizes the potential for it to be applied to tasks that are
conceptually similar and, more important, to tasks that have not
yet been conceived.
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