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Re: to install or not to install



Hello,

On Tue, 5 Dec 2000, QBA wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I'm gonna install Debian 2.2 on my computer soon (now running RH6.2)
> and hope that will handle this task but I'd like to know one
> thing about installing new programs. I've been browsing through this
> list contents and learned that Debian has tools letting me make
> deb packages from tarballs or rpms (and source packages too of course).
> But I don't know if it's really useful and needed. I must say that
Noit is not needed. Almost everything you need is in .deb format (Debian
is the Linux distribution with the biggest software archive, me is
told). The few programs which are in tarballs can be transformed into .deb
packets, but most of them will work fine without the conversion.

> I have a bad experience with rpms. Installing them is trivial
> but configuring program after installation is a mission impossible.
> So when I have a choice to install tarball or rpm package I always
> choose tarball. Following instructions included in INSTALL file
> gives me certainty that the program will be well installed and 
> configured. And there is also a second reason to install tarballs -
> some cool programs are available only in this format (e.g. w3mir).
> And here's my question: is it a bad idea to install tarballz on Debian?
No, why should it be? As long as the tarball is well configured and easy
to untinstall, as long as you can keep track of which tarballs you
install.
But I guess, when you have the choice between .deb and tarballs, go for
the .deb, because they are optimized for debian.

 > Thanks for help,
> 
> QBA
> 
> PS.
> I read that APT (mostly apt-cache) needs 2-3GB /var partition. 
> BTW, what does this program need so many bytes for?
> When I add to this some space for cached websites and posts from usenet
> I'll get about 5GB /var partition (it's a half of my disk size!).
> Is it really necessary to make this partition so big?
Hmmm, this has not happened to me jet, but I do not thing this is
something to worry about. I find apt-get working much easier than rpm. You
can specify a sources list with your debian cd's or sites, do a apt-get
install, and it just installs. This is really something in which Debian is
a star.

Greetz,
Sebastiaan



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