Re: The Hurd package system
On Wed, May 02, 2001 at 12:24:32PM -0400, Russell Francis wrote:
> > 2 things:
> >
> > 1) In what way would it benefit?
> [a BSD style ports/system collection/release]
>
> Linux seems to be a loosly knit collection of different packages where BSD
> seems to be a complete system.
Linux is just a kernel. It is not a complete operating system at all.
Any BSD system is just that BSD system. If you try to compile some BSD code
on a GNU/Linux system as Debian, or on the Hurd, you will see the
differences. It is easier to write a program just for one operating system,
rather than for any POSIX compatible system, or, horror, for a lot of really
existing operating systems which are somewhat POSIX compliant (or not) and
have bugs. The latter is what the GNU tools are written for.
A full comparison must include the contrib/ports section of a BSD system,
because that contains a lot of important software. This is just a loosly
knit collection as any, with a couple of very specific patches applied,
IIRC.
Debian is trying to gather together various software packages and
(pre)configure them for a consistent operating system. This is centralized
around the Linux kernel right now, but that's what we want to change, right?
It's more difficult to provide a source base for several kernel and hardware
combinations than to provide a source base for a single operating system.
> I liked the cohesiveness of their releases and really miss it
> in the Linux community.
That's what the Debian stuff is supposed to be for. You have found it ;)
> Is this the right place for this discussion? If not here, where?
I doubt there is any right place. You will have to create it yourself if
you seriously consider it.
Thanks,
Marcus
PS: No offense meant. There are different approaches to this problem. You
have to pick one and stick to it, as there is only so many time and
resources to draw from. Once we have one working system, it will be easier
to base new systems on it. There are some problems from using Debian, but
so many more in the upstream source or in the Hurd itself.
--
`Rhubarb is no Egyptian god.' Debian http://www.debian.org brinkmd@debian.org
Marcus Brinkmann GNU http://www.gnu.org marcus@gnu.org
Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de
http://www.marcus-brinkmann.de
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