Re: DebToo: Debian, Gentoo-style
El Wed, 27 Aug 2003 22:22:28 +1000 Glenn McGrath <bug1@optushome.com.au> escribió:
> Source based distro's are more bandwidth friendly as the source can be
> reused to produce new revisions of existing packages.
>
> As a developer i would _much_ rather have a cache of old source code
> than a cache of stale binaries.
Or not. For sid I'd choose binary; woody would benefit from source. I think.
Take into account the time you waste compiling. What do you want to
pay, bandwith or CPU usage? The answer isn't the same for everybody...
(if we want to touch perfection)
>
> USE settings are the best packaging innovation since apt.
>
> Optimised binaries wont run slower than non-optimised binaries.
It depends a lot of what "optimizations" you do. (It'd be interesting
to measure gentoo's systems compiled from scratch with -O3. They even
compile kernels with -O3; this has been measured and kernels are slower)
The main problem with debian vs optimizations is that we compile for i386
code, which sucks. Most of the debian people use i586/i686 systems today.
Why are we compiling code for a small minority that still uses a 486 as
routing box? I386 could very well be a subproyect. I don't think
any i386 needs X 4.3 with gnome/kde, so why are providing binaries
optimized for a machines which aren't going to use them?
> We have the begginings of support for user optimised binaries, but we
> have a long way to go before catching upto gentoo.
>
> We shouldnt be so wrapped up in our own importance that it blinds us to
> the community. Gentoo is doing something right.
I'm already doing optimised binaries in Debian. It's already there
(Just too complex).
I don't like gentoo 100%. It does some good things, but it doesn't do most
of them in the right way; IMHO.
To start with; we don't want to make a distro which has to be recompiled.
Binary packages are cool for installations.
(Gentoo could do this as a subset of their system "get that specific
architecture; get a standard USE selection, make packages and burn a iso
which installs 100% binary packages")
Some issues with a USE flag for me are:
o USE benefits would have to be measured. What's the cost of everything
depending of everything? How configurable can be a gentoo system;
that it can justify a USE flag? Can't we compile things with everything
compiled in; and just provide binary packages for some specific options?
o It's THE reason why gentoo doesn't provide binary packages.(Actually; gentoo
could solve this with a good p2p-based distribution system for packages. It'd
be also cool to have a p2p method for apt and download optimised binaries...
we could keep the MD5s at debian.org and check against them before installing)
o If you change a flag in a package; you should recompile all the dependencies.
This is important. This makes reconfiguration of a system REALLY _hard_ (Gee,
I got this new hardware which supports X feature and now I'll recompile 200
libraries). Do we want this just to get a 'better' package system?
o If at the end you need a USE flag because it allows a good configuration;
what you really should do? Write a new package system because apt sucks?
Or fix your software because it doesn't allow dynamic configuration of some
settings?
(NOTE: I'm not suggesting gentoo sucks; just wondering what people thinks...)
o I've other things in mind, but I've to sleep.
(I think at the end we'll come with this conclusion: There're different people
and different needs and both distros have to live together)
Whatever we do: It's much easier to create whatever package system you want and
migrate to them inside debian, than creating a new distro and all the
infrastructure it requires.
Diego Calleja
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