[Sussex] A rant on using different distributions

[Stephen Williams]

On Tue, 2005-09-27 at 11:23 -0400, Matthew Macdonald-Wallace wrote:
> OK,
> 
> I've recently installed a variant of Debian (Damn Small Linux) onto my 
> laptop. I run Gentoo on my Server.  Out of the two, I have always heard 
> it said that Debian (and debian-based distros) had a better package 
> management system than Portage, and that they were more straight forward 
> to install and use.
> 
> I've now re-installed DSL (Damn Small Linux) three times onto this 
> laptop because I couldn't get it to install the packages I wanted it to. 
>   Now that I've got the distro up and running, I've been playing with 
> apt.  so far my impression is this - it's crap.
> 
> Here's a little example of how to install in Gentoo vs how to install in 
> Debian:
> 
> 
> Gentoo:
> 
> emerge -s packageName
> emerge packageName
> 
> Debian:
> 
> apt-cache search packageName
> apt-get install packageName
> 
> 

I've always argued that Gentoo is great apart from the lengthy compile
times. Now there is a binary Gentoo distro - Koroora, and a Gnome GUI
based livecd and installer (admittedly still in beta) as well as the
traditional Gentoo compile-everything-from-scratch approach.

I've learnt a huge amount from installing and running Gentoo, and now it
fits like an old shoe.

I've tried Debian, and the latest Sarge installer is a huge improvement
on previous efforts, but I still spent as much time trying to learn the
ins and outs of Debian as I did Gentoo, so in the end there's no
advantage for me to install Debian.

I'm just finishing off a new install on a new 120Gb HDD in my trusty
Dell notebook. Kde-meta (347 odd packages) took 30 odd hours to compile,
but did so without a single failure. It's a case of start the compile
and leave till done. Despite the large number of USE flags (compile
options to non-Gentoo users) and huge number of packages, there was only
a single compile failure, in Gnome-vfs, and that was easily fixed.

In addition, I've got everything that I want working. Lircd, mplayer,
amarok, timidity, hal, dbus, ivman etc, and it all adds up to a great
distro. Vote Gentoo I say!

Steve W.

> 
> Why do I need to use two seperate tools to find and then install a 
> package???
> 
> 
> Error reporting in Gentoo is great.  It gives proper error messages like 
> "This package will not be installed because it is blocked by package x. 
> Please remove that package before installing this one."
> 
> Debian simply said "This package depends on package x, but it's not 
> going to be installed".  WHY THE F**K NOT? TELL ME WHAT I NEED TO DO TO 
> STOP THIS HAPPENING!  DON'T JUST TELL ME YOU CAN'T DO IT! [1]
> 
> My advice from now on to anyone that cares to take it is this:
> 
> If you want a small footprint that is quick to install but completely 
> non-sensical to maintain, use debian.  If you're willing to wait for the 
> added stability and tuning that compiling your own software through an 
> easy-to-use, understandable command-line interface ( and let's face it, 
> with the speed of machines that are out at the moment, it's not a huge 
> difference!) use Gentoo.
> 
> /me stands down from soap box, dons flame-proof jacket and fdisks every 
> debian mirror he can find...
> 
> Matt
> 
> [1] Sorry about going all "AOL" on you there, it just really gets to me...
> M
> 
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