[NTLUG:Discuss] Debian

[Tom]

Leroy Tennison wrote:

> Peter A. Koren wrote:
>
>> 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....?
>>>   
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>>  
>>
> Now I'm curious, if there are distros that aren't RPM-based:
>    What do they use for "packaging"
>    How do they solve the 'dependency' problem differently?
>    What are the other advantages/disadvantages?
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
I ran into the same problems with rpm, dpkg, etc.  When researching 
alternatives I found OpenPkg at openpkg.org which have an answer of 
sorts, although it's still rpm based, and then Gentoo which uses a 
system called portage based on the BSD ports package.  I settled on 
Gentoo and it has pretty much solved the library issues, but does 
require considerable maintenance because of the bleeding edge nature of 
the distro, and has a fairly steep learning curve to install and 
administer the system. 

I've only run into a couple of things that weren't available 
pre-packaged but since it uses tarballs it's very easy to install things 
even though it's not pre-packaged and the system will recognize the 
software is installed so dependency issues have never been a problem.  
It's source code based, so you compile everything on the system for your 
particular hardware (which can require a considerable amount of time.) 
and it uses a unique scheme for the runlevel startup scripts.

A nice thing about the distro is that the repository information is 
dynamic so if a site quits hosting a repository, or goes off line, 
looses network, etc, the system can locate alternatives.

Tom