[Sussex] A rant on using different distributions

[Paul Tansom]

Matthew Macdonald-Wallace wrote:
> 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.

I think we may have to agree to differ here, but it may be experience
with the two distributions. From your example I don't see the Gentoo
message as being any more or less helpful than the Debian one. Why is it
being blocked by package x? Does package x need upgrading, removing or
replacing with a different one that does the same function?

Taking your Postfix example, I recently installed Dovecot on several of
my servers and Debian simply stated that it would be removing my Courier
packages and asked whether I wanted to continue. Admittedly it didn't
specifically state that it was removing them because Dovecot replaced
them in functionality, but it was removing them because they clashed
with Dovecot (as defined by the information in the Debian package).

Going back to your original example again, Debian is stating that
package x isn't going to be installed, therefore you cannot install the
package you want to. You can then try to install it and see why it won't
be installed (from the error message). Admittedly it could say that it
isn't going to be installed because of a dependency clash, or because it
isn't available, but from my experience of Debian it does tell you that
only version x.xx is going to be installed if it can install, or already
has installed the required package. If it isn't going to be installed
the likelihood is there are more knock on dependency issues beyond the
first one so tracing these down could end up with a whole raft of
confusing information that you would do better to address one item at a
time (in extreme cases, in simple cases the primary message is, in my
experience, more than sufficient).

I'm going to have to try Gentoo and see how it really does compare now!
I wonder how it will cope in QEMU to save me the time and space of
setting up another box (that would likely be old!).

<snip>
> 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.

I would argue that switching between any distributions would require a
certain amount of time to learn the differences - even once the LSB
becomes the de facto standard across all distributions there will be
enough differences to require some time to be set aside. This is one of
the reasons I've not actually managed to pick any off my list of
distributions to take another look at yet (that and time/space for more
machines!).

As to the pulling of packages from different sources, yes you can. As I
would suspect is the case with Gentoo, you have to choose your sources
carefully (they are only as good as the packages provided after all) and
extra sources would mainly be for additional packages rather than
replacing the whole distribution (unless upgrading say from Stable to
Testing in which case a "aptitude dist-upgrade" would be wise - and
replacing large numbers of packages in any distribution should be
handled with care).

As an example I have in the past had extra sources for XFCE4 and
OpenOffice in order to keep closer up to date with these packages. I
have also pulled a few from Backports (mainly updated Spamassassin
iirc). These are fairly tightly focussed extra packages not large
collections that, although technically possible, I would personally
treat with great care!

<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.

I've not tried Gentoo, and I dismissed SuSE a long time ago because it
had trouble identifying my hardware and insisted on presenting me with
KDE (this is a long while ago now, my hardware was not too recent known
brand stuff, and I was a Gnome fan and detested KDE - now I'm not a big
fan of either!). Slackware is another I've not tried.

Red Hat 6 was the one I used most and the version of Linux that started
me thinking of abandoning Linux all together. I spent so long tracking
down dependencies to get things working (SSH is the prime one that comes
to mind and the nightmare of the upgrade issues to RPM4). Version 7 and
the GCC issues were what sealed Red Hats fate for me (back then) and
persuaded me to put the time into learning Debian. That proved far less
hassle than I expected, and had the knock on benefit of getting me to
put the time into learning Mutt (I took the easy way out and went for
Pine initially - not a bad package, but I much prefer Mutt now I've got
used to it; sadly I've ended up using GUI clients for a long while now,
but that's another story!). Fedora is my experiment with the Red Hat
world again, and looks likely to be a suitable replacement for Red Hat
on some desktop boxes I look after - it seems (from what I've seen so
far) to be a lot of the way towards the ease of use I have with Debian,
although I'm still not happy with the locations of configuration files -
but that is clearly a case of familiarity and I've not even checked
which is closer to the LSB!

Before anyone has a go at me for dismissing SuSE, abandoning Red Hat,
etc., I will note that this is because of personal preference, and I do
want to have a look at them again as I've been solidly Debian for new
installs for a good 4 years or so now. Things have changed a lot in that
time - Gentoo has been born for a start ;)

-- 
Paul Tansom | Aptanet Ltd. | http://www.aptanet.com/