Re: [DEBIAN] Standardization?
On Sun, 10 Aug 1997, Andrew Martin Adrian Cater (Andy) wrote:
> > Is there any REALLY GOOD reason for stuff like this? I know that the next
> > distribution is likely to cause a lot of turmoil with the libc6 thing and
> > a lot of work needs to go into recompliling the world but how about if we
> > have a look at this in some future release.
> 1, History
> 2, Sound programming practice
> 3. Standards compliance - POSIX and the newer standards.
Uhm, I actually LIKE the idea of putting the different runlevel rc.*
directories under rc.d but that is just me, I guess. Keeps /etc a little
less cluttered.
> Commercial distributions like RedHat won't normally change: Linux FT and
> SuSE were _obliged_ to change to .rpm because this is rapidly becoming a
> standard.
Maybe some day we will have UPS (Unified Packaging System) but I am not
holding my breath.
> Try persuading Patrick Volkerding / Walnut Creek that all the
> Slackware they sell is broken ??
The market will do that...or it won't.
> IMHO Debian works - I'll tell the world
> to use it but I can't expect them all to listen.
I firmly believe that Debian is the best integrated distribution. It
would be a shame to see it die in the future because of a political stance
that could have been easilly changed. In other words, we need to make
sure that we don't cut our noses off to spite our face. What is
TECHNICALLY better may make no difference in the marketplace (Beta vs.
VHS). There may also be small changes that are simply a matter of legacy
rather than technical merit that can streamline things considerably and
moderate the learning curve for folks (and developers) arriving from other
distributions.
> This just happened with Linux-FT 1.2. In the longer term, I suspect that
> Linux may also have two or three major players who will have to exist in
> parallel and accept incompatibilities above kernel level: at least we all
> have a common kernel -in the commercial world,try getting the
> same binaries and environment under BSDi/SCO/DEC/HP !
BUT! Developers that produce a product for Linux are going to select one
platform and say that they have a Linux port. They are not going to
create a separate port for each distribution in use. The closer the
distributions can come to some common point, the EASIER it would be to
make small modifications to accomodate a different distribution and make
it more likely to happen. As it stands, I would think that a developer
would look at its target market and decide which distribution is in most
widespread use there and develop its application targeted for that
platform. For educational and government, Debian might hold a larger
share than it does in industry and personal use, I do not know.
> All good ideas, all worthy of long discussion, but probably doomed.
> Linux has been evolving along parallel distributions for too long
> for hardened users to give up their favourite FS layouts / preferred
> features.
But if it means that they risk "loving it to death" (literally), some
things might have to be compromised at some point. Example, if dpkg is so
much better than rpm, why not contribute to rpm to incorporate the needed
features? Because some are going to resent the name rpm and the loss of
.deb? What difference does it make in the practical sense as long as it
gets the job done? As long as the technical superiority is still there,
what difference does it make what it is called? On the other hand, are
there any subtle changes that can be made to dpkg to make the format of
.deb files a little closer to .rpm without sacrificing any technical
superiority? These are the kinds of questions that might start to prove
crucial as Linux matures. Face it, there are probably more than twice as
many RedHat + Caldera systems out there than Debian. I suspect that
finding commercial applications in .deb format will always be a problem.
> In the long run, people go with their favourite distributions
> mainly for ease of use. Having tried most of the others, I stick with
> Debian because the people who develop it are accessible, know what
> they are talking about and don't introduce unnecessary features -
I use it for the same reasons, most importantly for me ... it WORKS.
> signal to noise ratio on this list is also very low.
Ok, I get the hint :)
George Bonser
Segmentation Fault just kidding :)
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