On Tue, Jan 15, 2002 at 12:38:14PM -0800, Hugo Rabson wrote: > --- Ben Collins <bcollins@debian.org> wrote: > >The problem is that [Mindi] creates a rootfs (I believe) and copies > >/sbin/lilo blindly to the new rootfs. Thus, you just have a broken shell > >script. > Debian is designed for users to use, not developers to develop for (at > least, I should hope it is). So, if a developer finds it hard to > develop for Debian, that's unfortunate but not in itself grounds to > instigate a change. Also, there aren't many standards in Linux anyway, > so I guess it's fair enough if a given distro wants to go it alone & > do things its own way. Curiously, you seem to be using the terms 'developer' and 'user' in the exact opposite sense that I would expect. I can't imagine any sane reason that a user would ever need to concern himself with whether the file /sbin/lilo is a binary, or a shell script, or a lisp coredump, or a symlink to /bin/true, so long as it has the expected semantics and does the right thing. OTOH, someone who is /developing/ software that copies the system's lilo binary around for use as a bootloader certainly would need to be concerned with such an issue. I'm sorry you don't find Debian's way to your liking, but there are almost always sound technical reasons for the decisions that our developers make. We're always happy to work with software authors to make the system more usable, because developers are users, too -- but I don't think you'll find much sympathy around here for the notion that Debian should do things the way they're done on RedHat, SuSE, or Caldera "just because". > The /sbin/lilo.real issue and the gawk->awk issue are symptomatic of a > greater problem. Debian doesn't exactly have the best reputation for > user-friendliness as it is. Technical excellence at the expense of > ease of use would be a Pyrrhic victory and an especially ironic one > when Debian is about to make its first commercial release. I'm sorry, what "commercial release" is that? There have been commercial resellers of the Debian distribution for years, and Debian itself has no delusional aspirations of profitability. Steve Langasek postmodern programmer
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