Re: Some thoughts for Debian.
On Mon, 20 Jan 1997, John Goerzen wrote:
> > I think if debian is going to succeed, it's going to have to be reduced
> > to a standard set of "core" applications that will make up the "offical"
>
> I *very strongly* disagree. One of the things that brought me to Debian in
> the first place, and kept me here despite some problems with the 1.2 release,
> is the tremendous amount of available software.
If you think Debian has a tremendous amount of software, you should try
sunsite.unc.edu or tsx-11.mit.edu sometime.
I'm seriously thinking of going back to slackware. I've searched
ftp.debian.org for bash 2.0, the 2.1.x kernel, and other recent software,
but they're nowhere to be found. I just found out that my Debian system
compiled Linux 2.1.21 with the 2.0.27 kernel headers because someone
thought it was a good idea to fuck with the Linux kernel and libc. I
have no idea whose idea it was split every library into two (or more!)
packages, either. This is ridiculous. Under Slackware, when I want
S-LANG, I go to S-LANG home page and ftp it, compile it, and install it.
Debian gives me several packages to choose from, which, it turns out, are
all required. Then I find out that the guy who compiled it did something
weird. Lynx 2.6 doesn't compile with it. So, I go to the S-LANG home
page and get the real source and compile it. Lynx compiles fine. Why
was I recompiling Lynx? Because the guy who compiled that screwed it
up! My God, I've recompiled half the Debian packages, it seems like.
All this effort could have gone towards making my old Slackware system
more usuable than my current Debian system!
I don't know. Maybe I'm just not in the correct mindset for Debian. I
like to run the latest stuff. Debian offers, it seems, only the oldest,
most stable software. I just don't see why anyone would run Linux and
not want to compile software, be on bleeding edge, and actually
administer a UNIX system... I feel like I'm running Windows 95.
Unconfigurable software with horrid defaults, plain bad planning,
changing industry standards without notice, etc.
Ugh.
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