Re: Considering Debian
To quote "Rainer Mager" <rmager@vgkk.com>,
# So, to make a long story short, how is the Debian package manager in
this
# regards? Do the same problems exist?
Well, understand that there are two parts to the Debian packaging
system. 'apt', and 'dpkg'. 'dpkg' is roughly equivalent to function, if
not in features. 'apt' is a suite of utilities, and is generally what a
user would use. Debian has what are called repositories; there are local
mirrors in pretty much every country(I think ;). You can 'apt-get
install <package>', and it will resolve dependancies for you. It'll
install everything <package> needs, within limits. Sometimes two
packages conflict, and sometimes you'll need to manually over-ride it(so
that the other package gets removed). Anyways, it's pretty slick,
compared to 'rpm' :)
# How easy is it to mix package installed
# pieces to pieces installed by hand?
It's bad. Very bad. :) To make a long story short, just don't. If you
*must* install something manually, pass "--prefix=/opt
--sysconfdir=/opt/etc" or something to ./configure, to keep your own
compiled apps seperate from the packaging system. A *lot* of problems
that Debian users have is because they're mixing Sid or Woody(unstable
Debian branches) packages in a Potato(stable Debian, currently) system.
This causes numerous problems. A lot of problems are also caused by
people side-stepping the package management system. Basically, if
'apt-get' and 'dpkg' don't want to install a package, you shouldn't.
Things will break, and break badly.
Thank being said, there are some 6000 packages or so for Debian's Sid
branch. That's an awful lot of packages :) Most are pretty up-to-date,
too, except for a few notable exceptions like Mozilla(which is currently
stalled at M18). It's not too often that you'll have to do a manual
installation of an app. If the occasion arises, it's not too hard to
make your own .deb out of a source tarball, but I'll leave that exercise
up to you :)
David Barclay Harris, Clan Barclay
Aut agere, aut mori. (Either action, or death.)
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