On Oct 14 2003, at 13:36, Ren was caught saying:
> Let me explain one of my aggravations with Linux...
/me sense a flamewar brewing :)
> Over time, my original distro, be it debian, mandrake, or whatever,
> mutates into some other creature all together where package management
> is holding on a thin thread that is drawn tight and ready to snap
> because of all the non distro libraries, programs, etc I've installed.
> How to you guys deal with this?
>
> I've tried all sorts of distos, they all seem to have this weakness,
> which I know is kind of the nature of an open source OS that is
I don't see it as a weakness. By choosing a distro as opposed to rolling
your own, you are removing the burden of testing/validation/packaging
from yourself and letting others handle it. This is a good thing and
allows you to focus on using the OS as opposed to just keeping the OS
up and running. The downside is that you will run into cases where
a package here or there that you really want is not supported yet
and hence the above build disaster. At that point you can choose to
build it yourself and decide how far you are willing to go. I'm
personally not willing to go too far. If it gets to the point that I
have to start tearing my distro apart and possibly breaking dependencies,
I often just wait for an official package from the distro or some other
kind soul who does it unless it's an absolutely needed package.
~Deepak
--
Deepak Saxena -
dsaxena@plexity.net
"To eliminate the concept of waste means to design things - products,
packaging, and systems - from the very beggining on the understanding
that waste does not exist" - William McDonough & Michael Braungart,
From Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things
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