[SlugLUG] (no subject)

[cerise at armory.com]

Well -- keep in mind that the revdep-rebuild part isn't necessary and the
etc-update part is the bit to let you merge in the new config files.  Debian
tries to do that for you and mostly fails in my opinion, but that's another
story.

The biggest problem I have with deb is in unclear dependencies.  I have a
friend who emails me every so often to ask why a seemingly-unrelated-component
that she needs is being removed in a dist-upgrade.  Digging that out and 
cleaning it up is non-trivial in Deb.  In Gentoo, it lists the blocker for you 
and suggests what you ought to do instead, if it's not an outright change in 
package (e.g. ethereal -> wireshark).  That's far nicer and much less 
complicated.

The other thing I'm going to take issue with is the free software thing.  
There's a difference between not making a compromise on it and making it 
difficult for people who want to go outside that realm.  Portage tracks and
maintains ebuilds for all sorts of non-free software.  All you have to do is
emerge and away it goes.  If you want a completely free system, then you just
tuck a variable into your /etc/make.conf -- no muss, no fuss.

With deb?  Track down your own package and do it all yourself -- you'll get no
help from them whatsoever.

-Phil/CERisE

On Sat, Feb 17, 2007 at 04:42:37PM -0800, Sean Kellogg wrote:
> I guess I'm confused...  I thought debian was as easy as:
> 
> apt-get update
> apt-get dist-upgrade
> 
> Did I miss something?  Wireless drivers tend not to be a matter of technical 
> ease with Debian, but legal restrictions.  Debian remains one of the very few 
> distributions unwilling to make compromises on free software.  Call it 
> whatever you want, but I don't think complication is, err, apt :)
> 
> -Sean
> 
> On Saturday 17 February 2007 02:17:46 pm Alejandro Wainzinger wrote:
> > The last time I dealt with debian, it was my friend who wanted it on
> > his laptop before 2.6.17 which included bcm43xx drivers natively, so I
> > had fun trying to make his wireless work.  Not a bad distro, just
> > terribly confusing.  As compared to:
> >
> > emerge --sync, emerge -Davut world, etc-update, revdep-rebuild
> >
> > It's just so simple and straightforward, I'm too lazy to work with
> > anything more complicated or less effective.
> > _______________________________________________
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> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Sean Kellogg
> c: 831.818.6940 ? ?e: skellogg at gmail.com
> w: http://blog.probonogeek.org/
> 
> So, let go
> ?...Jump in
> ? ...Oh well, what you waiting for?
> ? ?...it's all right
> ? ? ...'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown
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