> > 1. Control of dependenices. With binary distros you're bound to the > > dependencies as decided by the package maintainer. Let's for example take > > vim in Debian. If you install vim lipgpm will be installed as well. I > > hate gpm and never use it, don't want the stuff on my system.With Debian > > you have no choice. With Gentoo you can set USE="-gpm" before buliding > > the package. If you hate QTyou can add -qt to your use flags and no > > optional qt interfaces to packages will becompiled. Same goes from gtk, > > gnome or whatever. For a list and usage of USE flags see: > > http://gentoo.org/doc/use-howto.html > > fine. > > in the case of debian, you simply need to do the minimal editing of the > control files. In case of RPM files: you need to edit the rpm spec. > > Normally I don't want to care about such things. But when I want to care, > it is not a problem to control them. Not a hassle, either.
With Gentoo it is a lot easier and no need to learn package file specs. Just set and ENV var and emerge. And I do care about such things. > > 2. Control of packages. You can easily change and add your own ebuilds > > (package descriptions), while the creation of rpms and debs is more > > involved and cubersome. With moderate bash scripting knownledge you can > > create your own packages for obscure apps or modify extisting ebuilds. > > If you want to shoot yourself in the foot, install from tarballs. Fine by > me. There are a number of wrapper systems for installing from tarballs > under /usr/local . But this is not what you want: you want files that will > be part of one distribution. Why installing from tarballs is considered shooting yourself in the foot ? After all we are talking about Open Source, not open binaries. Linux users should have no problems installing source packages. And you're not installing directly, emerge and portage take care of it for you, and tracks everything installed (which can be removed later). > FWIW, I have installed many programs on my Mandrake workstation. All of > them were RPMs. Packed by me, if necessary. In most cases it wasn't > necessary. > > The debian project has many developers, working with very loose > cooperation. They had to define strict interfaces between the different > packages, or else it will be a mess. Fine by them, but I want my distro to work by my rules. One of the things that I hate is that Debian throws everything into /usr/bin. Now try to change that and adjust other packages as well. On gentoo all kde related ebuilds inherit from kde's eclass one change and off you go. > > After getting pissed by the slow delivery rate of Debian (severla months > > ago) of xfree and kde/koffice I switched to LinuxFromScratch and couldn't > > be happier (so I have no problem compiling from source as you've > > guessed). The only chink in the armor was the control and tracking of > > dependencies. > > I am currently using debian with unofficial KDE3 debs. Works great. > > I also know of many people who use redhat and mandrake with unofficial > KDE3 packages. > > Frankly, I can't blame any distro for not having KDE3 so far. KDE3.0.2 has > had quite a few desktop crashes (not mere application crashes). Currently > KDE2 is the "stable" KDE, whereas KDE3 is still the "bleeding edge". I > figure that it will be the same way until 3.1 or so. > (I know bidi is a killer feature for us, but this about the rest of the > world for a moment) > > The same applies for gnome2. This is wrong. I'm using KDE3 since 3.0 has started from cvs in and since 3.0 beta I don't see any special crashes. I'm running 3.1alpha1 now (and cvs, they are all part of Gentoo's portage, and tracked by the system). I think you should blame your distro's packagers instead of KDE. I rememebr when Debian uses to track kde's 2.2 betas in unstavle when krusty was the maintainer, no one said: Hey don't put that it in it is bleeding edge. My systems is completely gcc3.1 based (gonna install the new one with gcc3.2) and works with no crashes, even with the preempt and lowlatency patched kernel. > > > Gentoo was like a dream come true. It is the perfect cross between Debian > > and LinuxFromScratch, you have the complete control of LFS and the > > dependencies handling of apt (with portage). > > > > You can also create binary packages (tbz2) for use on other machines > > without the need to compile them again if you wish. > > But then they wouldn't be optimized. Furthermore, there is no guarantee > that they would even run (if you used some instructions that are not > available on the target CPU: MMX2 (?)) It is up to you to make sure. If you have similar class of cpu's on the machines you're using no problem. You control how the packages are created, and to what machines they are distributed. No one holds your hand. You can build the packages for the slower machines on the faster ones with different optimizations as well. You're in control. -- Meir Kriheli MKsoft systems http://www.mksoft.co.il ================================================================To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
