[plug] Gentoo on APC cover disc

[Brad Campbell]

hatari at iinet.net.au wrote:

> FYI and FYI-PLUG
> To me the real problem with Linux is the program-dependency problem.  With so many 
> programs being developed from all directions (ie open-source) there aren't solid strategies to 
> maintain consistency or consistent installation.  Many programs that I try to load or run have 
> "dependencies".  I know that you can do things like apt-get but that maintains an "ongoing" 
> update pathway (extremely annoying).  It would be great if there was some kind of procedure 
> or standard that guaranteed open-source development or usage was guaranteed 1st pop (or 
> very close to it). 
> 

That is a pretty interesting point. The closest you will likely come to that is the Debian Stable 
distribution. The only "upgrades" that are issued are security fixes which are guaranteed not to 
break stability. I find myself wanting to selectively upgrade individual bits of software at various 
points though, and sometimes that requires additional upgrades. I manage this as best I can by 
keeping a builder chroot around with all the -dev packages, and re-compile the software I want to 
upgrade against the current -stable libraries and dependencies. Then I can just install the required 
.deb on the basic -stable install.

I do the same thing on my laptop. It's running Ubuntu 6.06LTS, but I have the latest HAL, udev, 
gnome-power-manager and some other misc tools (to cope with running the latest kernels). Generally 
the only "upgrades" that I get through the distribution channel are security fixes. This tends to 
make the system quite stable from a functionality POV.

I stopped doing "./configure ; make ; make install" years ago and never looked back.

In any case, if you choose your distribution for stability then that is generally what you get.

The easy solution to your dilemma is to compile your software statically linked, but then you run 
into a slew of resource sizing problems. It does pretty much ensure they will run anywhere though.
I have a couple of binaries I wrote in pascal back around the 2.0 days which are completely static. 
They just run on any x86 machine running a linux kernel I've ever come across. Pretty basic stuff 
though.

Brad
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