[Ilugc] using RPM packages in debian
- From: rajasuperman@xxxxxxxxx (Raja Subramanian)
- Date: Tue Apr 11 05:04:56 2006
Hi,
On 4/10/06, Vamsee Kanakala <vamlists@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Kumar Appaiah wrote:
Every distro has its own problems:
Though yum has solved most of these problems, I still cannot forget
the troubles I underwent in trying to install packages through RPM on
+1. I used SuSE 8.x to 9.1and RedHat 7.1 to 9. I can still remember
desperately trying to find some combinations of rpms (I think it was for
gaim) for SuSE. The first time I installed Debian with Asokan's help,
and started installing stuff, my eyes went wide with disbelief. I
couldn't believe I missed such a nice distro with painless package
distribution system. I'm sure things on the rpm front have improved a
lot now, but after I saw the light of apt-get, there is no turning back.
It's like crack.
Looks like I've started an rpm vs apt war... Sigh!
Debian's strength is far beyond a fancy package manager. The advantages that
I find with Debian are:
1. Debian means quality, quality means Debian.
Apt, documentation, standardization, compilation options/flags, everything
speaks of deliberate thought and careful attention to detail. IMO
Debian's cleanliness is second only to NetBSD, see:
http://netbsd.org/Goals/system.html
I can remember other Linux distros including poorly optimized math libs
that produced incorrect results, releasing unofficial versions of GCC
(remember kgcc?) and such screw ups.
I have far better faith in Debian.
2. Social contract and adherence to Debian Free Software Guidelines.
See
http://www.debian.org/social_contract. Crystal clear project goals.
IMO, Debian beats even the BSDs here.
3. Debian is 100% volunteer driven and non-profit. Embodies the true spirit
of Open Source.
4. Liberal organizational structure. Debian elects it's project leaders in
the same way we elect our Government.
5. Debian is an OS and therefore much more than just a Linux kernel and
userland. Debian runs on - Hurd, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenSolaris.
6. Runs on multiple hardware - x86, alpha, sparc, ppc, arm, etc. Other
distros have at some point dropped support for unpopular platforms (alpha,
sparc) due to lack of customer demand.
Trivia: WinNT 4.0 ran on x86, alpha and MIPS. And what remains now?
Standardizing on the same distro on for _all_ your platforms is a
tremendous win in a medium/large environment. Training your sysadmin
staff, scripting and maintenance is so much easier.
7. Debian tools - apt, dpkg, etc. - have found their way into other systems
Eg. fink.sf.net brings Debian's tools to Mac OSX.
There was even a port of apt to Windows! Web search for debian-win32.
8. Debian developers contribute extensively to upstream code.
9. The release streams - stable, testing, unstable - rather than versions
ensures that "stable" really does undergo thorough real-world testing.
Hmmm... Debian sounds more like a way of life (a religion?) to me.
- Raja
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