Why I use Debian. Was Re: [plug] Mandrake - printing

[Greg Mildenhall]

On Thu, 24 Feb 2000, John Summerfield wrote:
> > On Wed, 23 Feb 2000, John Summerfield wrote:
> > > > On Tue, 22 Feb 2000, John Summerfield wrote:
> > > > > Most times I can find an rpm created for Red Hat, though often for the 
> > > > > wrong version.
> > > > And hence rarely better than a tarball, and usually worse.
> > > I can type rpm --rebuild a darn sight faster than I can untar and read the 
> > > instructions.
> > It's been a while since I RPMed seriously, but doesn't this just take a
> > source package and build then install it? Don't the files still end up in
> If configured properly, rpm it installs it into temporary files. Prudent 
> users do not build rpms as root; I have seen some do undesirable things.
I don't quite understand this paragraph. :(
Either it's grammatically unsound, or it is not made in reference to the
text you quoted above it, or possibly both. Are you trying to say that
rebuilding an RPM won't put things into messy places and leave them there?
This is obviously true, but what about when you install the RPM? Will it's
install scripts to evil things to your system, regardless of where you put
the unpacked files?


> > > > that's an _advantage_ over unofficial RPMs. You put the files where
> > > > they are, so you know what to remove. Who knows what an unofficial RPM
> > > > might do?
> > And by the time you've found out exactly what it's putting where and
> > changed them to sensible places and parsed the install script and written
> > things down so you can check that the uninstall script is sane before you
> > run it and clean up after it, you could have just plonked a tarball
> > somewhere sensible and configured it so as not to conflict with the rest
> > of the carefully-managed system, with a few minutes left over to skim over 
> > the instructions, or perhaps do something more important if you're as busy
> > a person as John is.
> That's entirely nonsense.
So how do you install rogue RPMs?

> > > > > I use RHL because it works.
> > Does it though? I'd be astonished if your haphazard approach to installing
> > third-party RPMs hasn't led to things breaking down here or there. Have
> > you ever reinstalled a Linux distribution?
> I have reinstalled, but always by choice in preference to upgrading.
Mmhmm. So you will see my point. I don't install third party .debs and
have never reinstalled a Debian system in my life, _except_ for when I
used an unofficial broken version from Infomagic. (My first experience
with Debian and almost enough to put me off, but in the end it did teach
me to use the official packages)

> One of the impediments to uprading another box is software that's 
> installed (and working) that is installed from a tarball.
But at least you put it there and hence know where it is, and at least it
hasn't altered your package database, potentially blocking/sabotaging the
upgrade.

> > > > If something is packaged with only one distro, I wouldn't touch it. :)
> > > Caldera has shipped stuff not available from others at times; I think it 
> > > recently had SO included, and cost heaps less than RHL.
> > Well, apart from my inherent distrust of non-free bloatware like SO... I
> > though most of the distros included it, though many will of course have a 
> > core distribution of Free software?
> There was a first, and I think it was not RHL.
There was a first to include it in their standard distro, but they didn't
do anything to prevent it from installing on another distro. Isn't it far
easier to grab what you want from the new CD and install it on your
existing system?

-Greg