Re: Re: Debian BSD.. cool idea
On Sun, Jan 30, 2000 at 02:16:16PM -0500, Dan Papasian wrote:
> You seem to imply that Debian would be bringing stability to FreeBSD.
> Isn't stability already there? Please elaborate.
Let's not have an argument about stability -- I have never seen any
proof that one is more stable than the other. I've heard the stories
about how BSD networking is far superior too and I've never been convinced
of that either.
I think there are particular advantages of each kernel. Unless the FreeBSD
kernel has support for amateur packet radio (AX.25, various hardware
drivers etc) it's no good to me on a few of my systems. But I've heard
there's some pretty cool stuff going on in FreeBSD 4 and later in
the IDE drivers, like re-ordering them to account for disk geometry etc.
So what are the reasons for doing a Debian/FreeBSD mix? I still don't
think a real conclusion has been reached on this one. I think that
Debian's user-space is better organised (the /usr versus /usr/local
thing is one example) and that our package management is superior.
I think Debian packages make a lot more effort to configure themselves
than BSD ones do. And Debian doesn't have the base versus the-rest
separation which BSD does, which is good IMHO. But I don't know
FreeBSD well enough to be sure about any of this.
So if I think the Debian user space is better, and there's nothing
in the Linux versus BSD kernel argument, what I am doing here?
I can't remember, to be honest :-)
A friend of mine who is a BSD fan suggested it might be more useful
to enhance the linux compatibility on BSD than to implement some
of the other ideas. Perhaps /compat/linux could be managed with
dpkg and use Debian packages to do it.
> Except MySQL is a 3rd party package, so it shouldn't touch much below
> /usr/local. It should go into /usr/local/var (or /var, depending)
> and /usr/local/etc.
Those are weird directories. /usr is by definition (in the FHS
anyway) fairly static -- so /usr/local/var is a contradiction to me.
> But it is still easier to just fix FreeBSD then make another OS out of
> the thing :) I used Debian exclusively from when hamm was just getting
> onto CDs until a month or so slink went glibc2.1.
(Err, slink has glibc2.0 -- potato has 2.1. Perhaps you're a version out?)
> I've been using FreeBSD for 8 months now, and contributing for 1 month.
> I've had _less_ hassle with ports/pkg_add then I ever had with dpkg.
> While the feature is lacking on paper, Real Life Usage(TM) shows ports/pkg_add
> to be superior. (Of course, YMMV)
How so?
> I don't see how Debian handles dependencies better. DEPENDS with
> ports/packages works fine.
Conflicts are, in our experience, a necessary part of the dependency
system. Debian wouldn't be nearly as good without it. And the virtual
package system, for that matter.
Hamish
--
Hamish Moffatt VK3SB. CCs of replies on mailing lists are welcome.
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