[Sussex] A rant on using different distributions

[Steve Dobson]

Matt

On Tue, Sep 27, 2005 at 01:37:35PM -0400, Matthew Macdonald-Wallace wrote:
> Mr Dobson! I wondered if you'd reply to this... ;)

I would not have wanted to disappoint.  :-)
 
> Steve Dobson wrote:
> >Matthew
> >
> <snip>
> 
> >
> >>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.
> >
> >
> >You sound like someone who is frustrated at your lack of understanding
> >and are blaming your tools rather than seeking to educate yourself.
> 
> This is after nearly a month of searching forums, uninstalling, 
> re-installing, googling and experimenting.  I've been trying to educate 
> myself and it just doesn't seem to be working.  I really can't remember 
> the learning curve for Gentoo - Steep as it is - being this difficult.

Well why didn't you post a question here?!?!?!?!  I'm a lapsed DD and
Colin in the process (or has just finished) of becoming one.  I'm not 
arguing that this ML should be your first port of call, that's what
Google is for, but it is one of the purposes that the LUG is for - 
helping others!

> >I've just installed JBoss on my laptop.  It's the first time I've got
> >it working, although I have tried three or four times before.  Why was
> >it different this time - simple, I found the document that lead me
> >through the process correctly.  Is certainly isn't that JBoss was
> >crap and now is okay - I'm sure v3.x is just a good as v4.x, the big
> >change is me.
> 
> I'm still searching for the Docs to guide me through setting stuff up on 
> this box... :)

What's to read.  Just pop in the net-install CD and answer the questions.
While I admit that some of the questions can be a little difficult to a
complete newbie that doesn't understand network addressing, they should not
pose a problem to someone who has installed Gentoo.

> >>Why do I need to use two seperate tools to find and then install a 
> >>package???
> >
> >
> >Because the two commands are trying to do two different things, and
> >in good *nix tradition have been separated.  apt-cache is there to
> >manipulate and integrate the APT cache, apt-get is there to put data
> >from remote locations and install them.  These are two very different
> >tasks, although they do work on the same data set.
> 
> Fair enough, but why call it apt-cache? Why not apt-search or apt-find?

Because it is there to manipulate the cache.  Searching is just one of
its options, you may also what to show the details of the package, or
add an index file, ...  A quick look at the man page will show you
that apt-search or apt-find would be a really, really poor name.
 
> >Either emerge is not trying to do as much as the apt system or it is
> >doing more than one job and is heading to bloatware country.  I
> >suspect that it is the former, and I am not putting emerge down here,
> >just to say that one is not the same as the other.
> 
> emerge may well be doing the latter, it may well be heading towards 
> Bloatware, but it means that I only need to learn one command, and that, 
> imho, means that it's quicker to use and easier to maintain.

Now come on.  You can't be saying that learning one command which has
numerous flags to change what it does is easier to remember than a 
different command for each one.  You're example used "emerge -s" and
when using single letter flags you tend to get into name space clash
quickly.

<snip>

> One of the initial problems I had with this distro was that the sources 
> were mixed.  I have now changed them all to point to the debian-stable 
> mirrors and I'm having issues installing something as basic (with regard 
> to importance, not code) as CUPS.

Mixed sources can get you into piles of trouble.  I have CUPS installed on
two servers and my laptop. I had trouble configuring, but not installing.
If you're having trouble then you may have a non-Debian package that is
getting in the way.  You can downgrade, but it is never a simple job.
I recommend that you download the net-install ISO for Debian and install
that.  If you want to keep Debian small then skip the task selection 
(where it asks if the system is going to be a X11 workstation, development
box, ...) and just install the packages you need when you need them.
Takes a little longer to install - more commands to issue, but that way
you only end up with the packages you need.

> >I would warn everyone from taking advice form someone who doesn't know
> >what they are doing, and Matt clearly doesn't when it comes to Debian.
> 
> *ouch* - fair point, I don't and maybe that is the problem,

Of course the problem is that you don't know what you're doing.  You're
looking for documentation.  It's either that your your crap at IT and
I, having install Debian a number of times, am a God!!!  I don't believe
that, we've talking to much in the past for me to believe that.

> but I can't 
> find any _truely useful_ documentation about installing Damn Small Linux 
> and getting it to do what you want it too.

Okay, so DSL has a problem in a lack of documentation.  Debian has loads,
but I haven't used most of it so I can't say how good it is.  I use a
small set of low level command line tools to install by Debian packages.
There really isn't that much to learn, the trick is knowing how to apply
it.  But that is the same for Gentoo (from what I recall of Steve W's
talk on it).

> >Okay, you've had your rant and I've had mine.  But I'm wondering why you
> >installed DSL on a laptop.  Why not Debian itself?
> 
> The laptop is a 1.4GHz with 512Mb RAM.  I chose DSL because it is small 
> and light-weight.  Gentoo needs a minimal install space (without X) of 
> about 1Gb.  DSL's inital foot-print (including X), is 50Mb.  The smaller 
> distro I use, the larger amount of space I have for my logs, images and 
> code.

I have recommend you switch to Debian.  As it happens I've just installed
a server (no X) and it mapps out thus:
   Filesystem  Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
   /dev/hdc5   6.2G   72M  6.1G   2% /
   /dev/hdc1    45M   15M   27M  36% /boot
   /dev/hdc7    16G  429M   15G   3% /usr
   /dev/hdc9    16G  319M   15G   3% /var
As I tend to install Gnome those machines wouldn't be a fair comparison
as there is a lot of code in Gnome (or KDE) these days.

I still think that Debian would be a better choice than DSL, you really
can "tune" the packages installed to provide a reasonable small system.

Steve
-- 
Ingrate, n.:
	A man who bites the hand that feeds him, and then complains of
	indigestion.
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