Re: Steam Deck: good news for Linux gaming, bad news for Debian :(
❦ 11 August 2021 11:27 +02, Steffen Möller:
> I have no exact idea what to change, though. A rolling Debian would be
> cool, yes, but also a bit late when compared with environments that
> Conda offers or the ease that comes with multiple installations of conda
> to e.g. avoid name conflicts. If we had a chroot for which you do not
> need to be root, then together with snapshot.d.o we would be darn close
> to what Conda is offering. I have no idea how to get there, though. With
> singularity maybe?
We package only a very small subset of Conda, I don't see in what
universe we could be competitive, rolling or not rolling.
I think we have more systemic issues. I am quite impressed how Nix/NixOS
is able to pull so many packages and modules with so few people. But
they use only one workflow, one way to package, one init system, etc.
Looking at Arch, one workflow, one way to package, one init system, etc.
Looking at Fedora, one workflow, one way to package, one init system.
Let me take again the example with Nix. Anyone can do a simple pull
request and gets its change accepted. Each package has a maintainer, but
the ownership is quite weak. The maintainer may say no, but if they are
just busy, someone else may merge the change if it looks reasonable.
In Debian, we have many workflow (BTS, MR to submit changes, Git, not
Git, Git workflow 1, Git workflow 2, Git workflow 3), many ways to
package (just one makefile, old debhelper, new dh), many init systems.
And the ownership problem prevents people to help from time to time.
There are so many packages I come accross that could just be updated to
a more recent version and looks like semi-abandoned but I just don't try
any more because there are so many ways to fail.
I still trust Debian to be the most technically excellent distribution,
but that's not all it makes to stay relevant. My point is that it would
help to reduce the technical liberties we take in Debian. However, I
don't think that's who we are.
Today, it is very difficult to only use Debian own packages. We just
tell people "just add random repositories". Nix and Arch are able to
have almost everything packaged. Nix is able to include into a single
workflow most other language ecosystems.
--
The last thing one knows in constructing a work is what to put first.
-- Blaise Pascal
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