[Sussex] A rant on using different distributions

[Matthew Macdonald-Wallace]

Paul Tansom wrote:
<snip>

>>>>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]
> 
> 
> Re-reading this I guess the Debian message could have added the words
> "please install it", but I guess that's obvious to most ;) Additionally,
> does the Gentoo error tell me what to do if I don't want to uninstall
> package x? (other than imply not installing the new package!).

My complaint here is that if Gentoo doesn't want to install something, 
it gives you the reason why, i.e. if you install something like postfix, 
it tells you that you need to replace the default "dummy" smtp server 
ssmtp.  Debian, in my experience, just tells you that it can't be 
installed - no reason why, or how to correct it.

> 
>>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.
> 
> 
> So if somebody created a modified version of Gentoo with a new set of
> sources for the packages you would expect to be able to switch back to
> the original Gentoo ones and continue as if you'd installed from the
> main Gentoo ones all along?

I've done an update so that all packages are sourced from Debian and 
have ensured that that it is no-longer installing from the DSL packages. 
  I still have these issues.  With Gentoo, yes, I expect to be able to 
do exactly that, but that's not how gentoo works.  In gentoo, I can 
install individual packages from different sources and package hacks 
based on the package.keywords file.  Is this possible in Debian? I 
really don't know.  I also don't have the time to learn.

> 
>>>>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.
>>>
>>>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, but I can't
>>find any _truely useful_ documentation about installing Damn Small Linux
>>and getting it to do what you want it too.
> 
> 
> So your problem is with Damn Small Linux which us a customised
> derivative of Debian and not Debian itself. I've no idea what
> differences there are between the two, but clearly it seems that DSL has
> modified the sources and therefore you are trying to update from a
> different set of sources to those you installed from - sounds like the
> root to the problem to me.
> 
> It's a bit like saying don't use Red Hat because Mandrake is naff (OK,
> they've drifted further apart now) or don't use Red Hat because White
> Box is bad (maybe to close to the original this time!).

See my email to Simon about this. :)

<snip>

> I'm assuming the limitation is disk space and not processing power. I
> was running Debian on a 750MHz laptop with 256M RAM and half of a 10G HD
> (dual boot) and until a recent upgrade my primary Debian box was 1.2GHz
> with 512M RAM - now I have an Athlon 2600+ but still the 512M RAM until
> I plug another 512M in. The only time I've felt restricted my disk space
> is when I was in the Windows boot of the laptop (the other 5G), which
> doesn't really count does it! ;)
> 

Correct.  I treasure my Hard-Disk space.  on my server, once it is up 
and running, apart from Logging, the space taken up on the HDD rarely 
changes.  A (relatively) large footprint is no problem in this situation.

DSL seemed to give me the opportunity to run a distro that I had been 
recommended to by many people (including the esteemed Mr Dobson) and had 
always wanted to try.  It was also incredibly small and seemed to 
include every thing I needed for my day-to-day tasks.

it is only as I have started to install programs and dependencies that 
are not in the DSL packages and moved from DSL to Debian sources that I 
have encountered these problems.

As I have said, it may well be me, but Gentoo, SuSE and all of the other 
distro's I've tried (including FC2, Slackware and Redhat 6) seem to 
"Just Work"(tm), but for me, debian doesn't.

I will taken Steve's advice, back everything up and try a net-install of 
Debian, and I'll report back.  I'm not afraid to try new things, I just 
get frustrated when things don't do what they give the impression the 
will do, and then don't provide error messages that I believe to be helpful.

Cheers,

Matt