Re: Package configuration philosophy
On Tue, 25 Feb 1997, Yoav Cohen-Sivan wrote:
> It seems that Debian is taking a rather different philosophy on
> pre-configured packages than other distributions, such as RedHat. What
> I mean is that after installation of RedHat you have a more or less
> pre-tailored system setup. You can start tweaking your heart out but
> the basics are already there.
> Debian comes up in a much "rawer" form after install - for instance,
> no prompt beyond the basic "#" for root and "$" for the user (RedHat
> gives you the now famous "username /home/username$" prompt).
# and $ are standard/expected prompts. if you want something different,
customise it yourself.
I like my own prompt of `PS1=(\h-\u) [\t] \w\$ ` (looks like:
"(siva-cas) [12:14:32] ~$ ") but I wouldnt force everyone else to use
it...it takes me 5 seconds on every new debian machine i build to edit
~/.bashrc as needed.
> X is pretty bare in Debian after install, too - if you just "startx"
> you get a simple xterm with no default menus, no menued way of running
> another xterm, heck not even a FvwmModule running on screen with xload
> and xclock in it.
what are you talking about?
debian has a 'menu' package which all other packages can use to register
themselves with - menus for fvwm, fvwm95 and other are auto-generated
from this information. It was written in such a way that it is easy to
add support for a new window manager or text-mode menu program whenever
needed.
Not all packages are using menu yet, but most are.
It's also fairly easy to use it to make custom menus - e.g. if you want
an xterms menu which contains several "xterm -T <hostname> -e rlogin
<hostname>" menu entries then you can have it quite easily - either as
part of the standard system menu which everyone gets or as your custom
menu which only your login gets.
last i saw them, redhat's menus were all hard-coded. they DON'T get
automatically updated whenever a new package is installed. Debian's menus
DO get automatically updated.
so, install the menu package and look in /usr/doc/menu
> These are just a few examples.
...of not bothering to find out what debian can do.
it seems to me that your complaints have less to do with omissions in
debian than with lack of understanding/knowledge on your part. What you
want (and more!) is already in debian.
Craig
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