[NTLUG:Discuss] Debian

[Peter A. Koren]

Terry, you raise a good point. I have had it with the brain dead rpm
"dependency hell". I will be switching from Mandrake to another -- or
other -- distribution(s). I have been trying to install SciPy, the
Scientific Python package for Linux and have run into one roadblock
after another. After trying to set up Mandrake's URPMI install manager
for the 6 CD Power Pack version of 10.1 by adding each disk to be
considered a source, the manager complained that the dependency files
were missing from some of those disks.

In any case, I will be switching to Quantian Linux, a Knoppix derivative
-- Knoppix itself being a live CD derivative of Debian. I can also
install Quantian to the hard drive and I intend to do that. Quantian is
one of two distributions I know of that serves the scientific and
engineering community with distributions having a slew of appropriate --
scientific and engineering -- applications installed by default.

The other distribution that interests me is Scientific Linux, which used
to be Fermi Linux (Fermi Labs). They have a version with 64 bit support
that I will install on a new box that I will build. I will be at Fry's
today to research hardware options for that box, but I will buy online.
Scientific Linux is a Fedora based distribution and is actually Red Hat
Enterprise Edition with the Scientific stuff added. It is currently
Fedora 3 based. But there is apt-get support available. apt4rpm and
Synaptic are well supported for Fedora -- unlike Mandrake (at least I
could not find a way to do it with Mandrake).

So yes, apt-get and its front end gui, Synaptic, are critical pieces,
but even some rpm based distributions have a way to use these tools. Red
Hat, Fedora and I Suse have support available for apt-get and Synaptic.

On Tue, 2005-06-21 at 06:21 -0500, Terry wrote:
> While experimenting with Ubuntu just now, I ran Ubuntu's live cd on an
> old PC and in the process, I found some files on an old drive in that
> PC that I wanted to retrieve and thought I'd do it via scp, BUT, alas,
> I found that Ubuntu's live CD did NOT have sshd installed.
> [openssh-client is installed but not openssh-server] BUT, I was able
> to use apt-get to install openssh-server, [even though it's just a
> live CD!].
> My question is:   
> Is this particular to Debian and / or Ubuntu? 
> In other words: 
> Have I just discovered one of the cool treasures of Debian / Ubuntu? 
> or Did I just experience yet another Linux epiphany?
> In other words:  
> Is this new found capability just yet another of the added advantages
> of using apt-get?  And, it would follow, that if any live CD from any
> other distro included apt-get installed and configured properly, one
> could do the same thing?
> How about another package manager? Would another package manager be
> able to install applications to a live CD [with one single command]?
> or....?