On 08/27/2013 12:00 PM, Conrad Nelson wrote:
On 08/27/2013 10:22 AM, berenger.morel@neutralite.org wrote:
Le 27.08.2013 17:07, Conrad Nelson a écrit :
Debian's other problem is this need to split packages. A lot.
Debian
likes to brag about having a HUGE repository, but when you
actually
look at it, it's actually an AVERAGE repository made "bigger" by
the
fact that when you install software, despite the fact it downloads
and
installs up to 12 packages for the same thing it really is
basically
just ONE package. I don't actually see the purpose in why Debian
has
to split its packages dozens of ways especially when you still end
up
having to install them all anyway. Someone explain this to me.
I agree on most of your post, except that part.
Can you please provide package's names which should be united?
Of course, there are the ".*$", ".*-dev$", ".*-doc$" and ".*-dbg$"
packages, which could be merged. For -dev, ok, since text does not
take a lot of space. Still, most users does not need the headers of
programming libraries, so that separation makes the system smaller,
and reduce network load.
For -dbg, it' of course a good thing to not merge them: debugging
symbols takes a lot of space.
Then, there are -doc packages, too. I think the reason is the same:
most users does not need them, so why should they install it?
Now, if you mean that packages are too atomic, like, for example,
libpython2.7 which depends on libpython2.7-stdlib... I just want to
say that it's exactly why I dislike python's softwares: they usually
depends on lot of things which I do not think are necessary. Debian
simply shows that. I have no other examples than python's ones here,
so provide some, so that I could argue better :) (because that
argument is really poor: I do not like python... XD )
Oh, no, I think the -dev, -dbg, etc stuff SHOULD be split.
I'll go by example: The nvidia driver. In Arch it's easy to install,
there's not a lot of packages directly involved in the driver. Just
nvidia and nvidia-utils, as it should be.
Debian SPLITS these two packages about two dozen different ways,
with names that often confuse me into thinking one package is actually
the driver. They COULD be the driver, but just installing those
packages and trying to configure for nVidia doesn't seem to work for
Xorg.
I found out that pretty much the only way to install the nVidia
driver is the dkms package, which seems unneeded for users with the
stock kernel. Shouldn't Debian have a PREBUILT nVidia module for their
stock kernel? The end result is that installing this driver and
configuring it is unnecessarily messy and complicated due in no small
part to the fact you install at least half a dozen packages all of
which look like they're the driver itself.
I can understand having a dkms package for custom kernels, though.
I don't think I can explain the splitting thing that bugs me well
enough. Just that I think that Debian's claims to have a HUGE
repository are maybe a little dishonest when if they actually reduced
all their packages to what they are at their source, it's much smaller
than what they claim. Maybe a better metric would actually be about
actual quantity of SOFTWARE AS A WHOLE over individual packages. But
by that metric I daresay I've found more software in Arch's
repositories + the AUR than in Debian.
I'm not really happy with my example or explanation. Short answer is
it is, indeed, too atomic, the way they split packages. I'd only
split
packages in cases where whatever is split off can be replaced
completely, otherwise the split seems pointless (Exception being
stuff
liek -doc or -dev or -dbg. Not everyone is a developer.)