From: pa...@wau.mis.ah.nl (Paul Slootman) Subject: Obsolete packages in main/oldlibs Date: 1998/09/21 Message-ID: <19980921142520.B30720@wau.mis.ah.nl>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 393265574 Sender: debian-alp...@lists.debian.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailing-List: <debian...@lists.debian.org> archive/latest/964 X-Envelope-Sender: pa...@wau.mis.ah.nl MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: linux.debian.alpha X-Loop: debian...@lists.debian.org There's been some discussion about obsolete packages, particularly ldso. I've just been through the current Packages file, looking for stuff in oldlibs that isn't used anymore. The complete contents of oldlibs appeared to fall in this category: gmp libdb1 libgdbm1 libgpm1 libjpeg6a libpam0 libpaper libpng0 libpwdb0 libreadline2 ncurses3.0 slang0.99.34 slang0.99.34-dev tcl76 tcl76-altdev tk42 termcap-compat xslib zlib1 There isn't anything that depends on these, in main, contrib, non-US and non-free. I don't know about Red hat :-) Anyway, can anyone think of a reason why any of these should remain? If not (I'll give it a couple of days), I'll file a bug report against ftp.debian.org to have all packages in oldlibs removed for the Alpha distribution. Apparently the freeze for slink is about 4 weeks away, and it would be cool if Debian/Alpha makes it this time! Paul Slootman -- home: pa...@wurtel.demon.nl | work: pa...@murphy.nl | debian: pa...@debian.org http://www.wurtel.demon.nl | Murphy Software, Enschede, the Netherlands -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-alp...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listm...@lists.debian.org
From: ch...@beezer.med.miami.edu (Christopher C Chimelis) Subject: Re: Obsolete packages in main/oldlibs Date: 1998/09/21 Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.980921083236.32728C-100000@beezer.med.miami.edu>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 393271192 Sender: debian-alp...@lists.debian.org References: <19980921142520.B30720@wau.mis.ah.nl> X-Sender: ch...@beezer.med.miami.edu Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Mailing-List: <debian...@lists.debian.org> archive/latest/966 X-Envelope-Sender: ch...@classnet.med.miami.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: linux.debian.alpha X-Loop: debian...@lists.debian.org On Mon, 21 Sep 1998, Paul Slootman wrote: > Apparently the freeze for slink is about 4 weeks away, and it would be > cool if Debian/Alpha makes it this time! I agree. I think we can do it this time around. Any major problems need to be addressed soon, though, since I think slink's freeze time will be considerably shorter than hamm's was. C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-alp...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listm...@lists.debian.org
From: m...@glisco.it (Michele Comitini) Subject: Re: Obsolete packages in main/oldlibs Date: 1998/09/22 Message-ID: <XFMail.980922132748.mcm@glisco.it>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 393606065 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: debian-alp...@lists.debian.org References: <Pine.LNX.3.96.980921083236.32728C-100000@beezer.med.miami.edu> X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 X-Mailing-List: <debian...@lists.debian.org> archive/latest/970 X-Envelope-Sender: m...@geltrude.mixad.it MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: linux.debian.alpha X-Loop: debian...@lists.debian.org On 21-Sep-98 Christopher C Chimelis wrote: > > On Mon, 21 Sep 1998, Paul Slootman wrote: > >> Apparently the freeze for slink is about 4 weeks away, and it would be >> cool if Debian/Alpha makes it this time! > > I agree. I think we can do it this time around. Any major problems need > to be addressed soon, though, since I think slink's freeze time will be > considerably shorter than hamm's was. > The biggest problems I see are: - XF86_SVGA server locking the whole system with Millenium cards. - egcs has still some problems. - Stable kernels need some patching (alpha-patches). - If I need the HiSax more patching. - Ipfwadm does not work out of the box. I hope we will not have to wait until 2.2.x kernels are out. ------------------------- E-Mail: Michele Comitini <m...@glisco.it> Michele Comitini Glisco s.a.s. ------------------------- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-alp...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listm...@lists.debian.org
From: mcel...@isp.nwu.edu (Bob McElrath) Subject: Debian/Alpha suggestions Date: 1998/09/22 Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.96.980922125443.19969A-100000@odin.isp.nwu.edu>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 393713258 Sender: debian-alp...@lists.debian.org References: <XFMail.980922132748.mcm@glisco.it> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Mailing-List: <debian...@lists.debian.org> archive/latest/989 X-Envelope-Sender: mcel...@isp.nwu.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: linux.debian.alpha X-Loop: debian...@lists.debian.org On Tue, 22 Sep 1998, Michele Comitini wrote: > > On 21-Sep-98 Christopher C Chimelis wrote: > > > > On Mon, 21 Sep 1998, Paul Slootman wrote: > > > >> Apparently the freeze for slink is about 4 weeks away, and it would be > >> cool if Debian/Alpha makes it this time! > > > > I agree. I think we can do it this time around. Any major problems need > > to be addressed soon, though, since I think slink's freeze time will be > > considerably shorter than hamm's was. > > > > The biggest problems I see are: > > - XF86_SVGA server locking the whole system with Millenium cards. I just finished installing debian-alpha on my 533MHz LX164 system, and did not see this problem (I have a Matrox Millenium II). > - egcs has still some problems. > - Stable kernels need some patching (alpha-patches). > - If I need the HiSax more patching. > - Ipfwadm does not work out of the box. Biggest problems I saw were dependencies (I did an ftp install from ftp.debian.org). There are multiple copies of many packages, many packages are named in goofy ways (often with version numbers as part of the name, which seems to destroy dependencies). console-tools is screwed...it didn't seem to install properly, and caused other packages to not install properly because the libraries libcfont, libconsole, libctutils (all .so) were missing. Likewise with lesstif (for some reason some packages were looking for lesstifg as a dependency -- ddd for example). As I have time I will generate more specific bug reports for the maintainers. I didn't write down *every* error message I came by (besides, they scrolled by so *fast!* ;) Here are a list of dependencies required by various packages that were not found anywhere on the ftp.debian.org archive: jdk1.1, pgp, gnupg, festival, guile, lesstifg. In general, it seems a horrible idea to make versions part of the names of packages. Some are named things like jdk1.1, and some even worse, like blah3.4-08-23-1998. It seems to me that dates as part of the package names also destroys dependencies. Another problem I had was that there was little checking of available disk space. The first time I installed on to a 2 gig partition, and filled it up in the course of the install. The second time I used a 8 gig partition, and was more conservative in my package selection... ;) Perhaps the XSuSE server might be distributed with debian-alpha for those of us using things like Matrox cards? -- Bob ./'^`\._./'~`\._./'~`\._./'~`\._./'#`\._./'~`\._./'~`\._./'~`\._./'^`\. / Rube Goldberg? Bah! Amateur! I give you..Windows 98! Linux everywhere \ | Linux, because everyone's work is mission critical. ANYTHING inside. | |_Bob McElrath (mcel...@wisconsin.cern.ch) Univ. of Wisconsin at Madison_| \.___________________________________________________________________./ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-alp...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listm...@lists.debian.org
From: ch...@beezer.med.miami.edu (Christopher C Chimelis) Subject: Re: Debian/Alpha suggestions Date: 1998/09/22 Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.980922142413.4634B-100000@beezer.med.miami.edu>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 393725609 Sender: debian-alp...@lists.debian.org References: <Pine.SOL.3.96.980922125443.19969A-100000@odin.isp.nwu.edu> X-Sender: ch...@beezer.med.miami.edu Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Mailing-List: <debian...@lists.debian.org> archive/latest/991 X-Envelope-Sender: ch...@classnet.med.miami.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: linux.debian.alpha X-Loop: debian...@lists.debian.org On Tue, 22 Sep 1998, Bob McElrath wrote: > I just finished installing debian-alpha on my 533MHz LX164 system, and did > not see this problem (I have a Matrox Millenium II). Great. There are some problems that are pretty widespread with X and Matrox boards, though. I believe someone here is taking this up with the XFree people. > Biggest problems I saw were dependencies (I did an ftp install from > ftp.debian.org). There are multiple copies of many packages, many packages > are named in goofy ways (often with version numbers as part of the name, > which seems to destroy dependencies). console-tools is screwed...it didn't > seem to install properly, and caused other packages to not install properly > because the libraries libcfont, libconsole, libctutils (all .so) were > missing. Likewise with lesstif (for some reason some packages were looking > for lesstifg as a dependency -- ddd for example). Yeah, this can be a pain, but the packages are named a certain way for a reason. Unfortunately, many of the dependencies are screwy because of this. > As I have time I will generate more specific bug reports for the > maintainers. I didn't write down *every* error message I came by (besides, > they scrolled by so *fast!* ;) When you get a chance, just forward a good list (best you can do) to this list and we'll all grab a chunk and fix it. I'm going to try to get another dependency audit report soon, so most of that should pop up too. > Here are a list of dependencies required by various packages that were not > found anywhere on the ftp.debian.org archive: > > jdk1.1, pgp, gnupg, festival, guile, lesstifg. jdk isn't and probably won't be out with us for awhile...at least until I can verify that the sonames of the libs between us and RedHat are the same (linking to improper sonames could cause big problems). pgp and gnupg are available on nonus.debian.org. Lesstif is my personal favourite, so I'll look into that after I stop wrestling with binutils and egcs (and jade and dpkg and... :P). As for guile and festival, they should be fine last I checked. Then again, these could be related to the libstdc++ changeover. > In general, it seems a horrible idea to make versions part of the names of > packages. Some are named things like jdk1.1, and some even worse, like > blah3.4-08-23-1998. It seems to me that dates as part of the package names > also destroys dependencies. Yes and no. They are named that way mostly because the x86 maintainers wanted to install more than one version of each lib for various reasons. Plus, they went through the libc5 -> glibc changeover which necessitated some ugliness on that front. > Another problem I had was that there was little checking of available disk > space. The first time I installed on to a 2 gig partition, and filled it up > in the course of the install. The second time I used a 8 gig partition, and > was more conservative in my package selection... ;) This is a generalised problem. For best results on resolving this, file a bug report against the base-disk package. I'd like to see this resolved also since I've run into this problem before on the x86 as well. > Perhaps the XSuSE server might be distributed with debian-alpha for those of > us using things like Matrox cards? Not a bad idea. I'd actually like to see alot of changes to xfree's servers, but can't find the patches that we were applying to the original tarballs :( What is the licensing on the XSuSE server right now? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-alp...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listm...@lists.debian.org
From: pa...@wau.mis.ah.nl (Paul Slootman) Subject: Re: Debian/Alpha suggestions Date: 1998/09/23 Message-ID: <19980923095432.D11629@wau.mis.ah.nl>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 393926304 Sender: debian-alp...@lists.debian.org References: <Pine.SOL.3.96.980922125443.19969A-100000@odin.isp.nwu.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailing-List: <debian...@lists.debian.org> archive/latest/1003 X-Envelope-Sender: pa...@wau.mis.ah.nl MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: linux.debian.alpha X-Loop: debian...@lists.debian.org On Tue 22 Sep 1998, Christopher C Chimelis wrote: > On Tue, 22 Sep 1998, Bob McElrath wrote: > > > As I have time I will generate more specific bug reports for the > > maintainers. I didn't write down *every* error message I came by (besides, > > they scrolled by so *fast!* ;) > > When you get a chance, just forward a good list (best you can do) to this > list and we'll all grab a chunk and fix it. I'm going to try to get > another dependency audit report soon, so most of that should pop up too. Also look at http://www.nl.debian.org/lintian/reports/depcheck.html A lot of those problems are due to the stuff in oldlibs. I'll file a bug report today against ftp.debian.org to get those removed. I'll also have libjpegg-dev_6a removed (everything I rebuilt with libjpeg-6b works fine). > > In general, it seems a horrible idea to make versions part of the names of > > packages. Some are named things like jdk1.1, and some even worse, like > > blah3.4-08-23-1998. It seems to me that dates as part of the package names > > also destroys dependencies. > > Yes and no. They are named that way mostly because the x86 maintainers > wanted to install more than one version of each lib for various reasons. > Plus, they went through the libc5 -> glibc changeover which necessitated > some ugliness on that front. Besides, "we" (the alpha people) don't change package names; they are the same on the i386 platform, where (in theory) it should all be OK... > > Perhaps the XSuSE server might be distributed with debian-alpha for those of > > us using things like Matrox cards? > > Not a bad idea. I'd actually like to see alot of changes to xfree's > servers, but can't find the patches that we were applying to the original I was under the impression that the XSuSE stuff was put back into the core XFree86 stuff? From http://www.suse.de/XSuSE/XSuSE_E.html : S.u.S.E. is releasing all of these servers in close cooperation with their authors and with The XFree86 Project. Of course, all of them will be integrated into future versions of XFree86, like it has happened with XSuSE_Matrox or XSuSE_NVidia in XFree86-3.3.2 (see detailed list below). [...] Except for the server for 3DLabs based cards (XSuSE_Elsa_GLoria), all of our servers have been integrated into servers of XFree86-3.3.2. Here is a list, which XFree86-Servers do now contain which former XSuSE-Server: XSuSE-Server XFree86-3.3.2 XSuSE_At3d -> xsvga XSuSE_Mach64 -> xmach64 XSuSE_Matrox -> xsvga XSuSE_Nvidia -> xsvga XSuSE_Trident -> xsvga XSuSE_Tseng -> xsvga > tarballs :( What is the licensing on the XSuSE server right now? From the same page: The servers are freely available, the copyright is basically subject to the terms of the XFree86 copyright. Paul Slootman -- home: pa...@wurtel.demon.nl | work: pa...@murphy.nl | debian: pa...@debian.org http://www.wurtel.demon.nl | Murphy Software, Enschede, the Netherlands -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-alp...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listm...@lists.debian.org
From: mcel...@isp.nwu.edu (Bob McElrath) Subject: Back to RedHat Date: 1998/09/24 Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.96.980923222532.24160B-100000@odin.isp.nwu.edu>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 394244895 Sender: debian-alp...@lists.debian.org References: <19980923095432.D11629@wau.mis.ah.nl> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Mailing-List: <debian...@lists.debian.org> archive/latest/1019 X-Envelope-Sender: mcel...@isp.nwu.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: linux.debian.alpha X-Loop: debian...@lists.debian.org I'm sorry to say it guys, but after playing with Debian/Alpha for a week, I'm terribly unhappy with it. I think the amount of work I'd have to put into Debian would be much greater than that for RedHat, and it's too bad, I'm not fond of RedHat, but I already know how to fix their hacks. I need to get some work done on this machine, and can't tinker with it forever! ;) Here are a couple of general suggestions that I'd like to see in some distribution...some day... 1) Few (if any) trick/slick/pain-in-the-ass scripting thingies that try to make life "easier". I spend an inordinate amount of time looking through little scripts written to go along with distributions to figure out what they do, so I can undo it. And then when you remember one of those scripts and need to run it, you have no idea where it got run or how it was called. (i.e. configuring keyboard -- my keyboard went all goofy like it was remapped or something, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to fix it, or how to bring up that dialog box in the installation that chose the keyboard, or what that script did to select the keyboard) Other things in this category are /etc/alternatives, moving X11 config to /etc/X11, window manager menu structures (hook?) 2) Few (if any) duplicate functionality packages. For instance, Debian comes with like 7 mail-delivery-agents. What's with that? To a new user, it's not clear which is best, and at times, even that you can only choose *one*. Also, there are 3 different mutually exclusive ways to install the gtk libs. (???) 3) Whittle down the number of packages. At last count the main tree had 1713 packages in it. It takes many hours to sift through that list and decide what to install. And after doing so, you simply can't remember all the "neato" little things you installed. I saw mention recently of trying to keep up with the intel side of .deb's. Forget about it. Their community is much larger and they will always churn out new stuff faster than us. Go for a smaller set of stable packages instead of the latest whiz-bang stuff. 4) Get rid of beta software! This includes WindowMaker, Gnome, etc. 5) In order to help users see and play with the software on their system, set up some kind of way to automagically add installed software to window manager menus so they can run it. (*all* window managers...) 6) dselect needs a major overhaul. Its key mappings are non-intuitive and conflict with other popular packages (i.e. '-' going back a page in more, and the + key turns into the * symbol, while all other keys match symbols). It doesn't show you that a package has dependencies until after you try to install it (which takes time, and is distracting to switch screens). Show (unresolved) dependencies on the same screen that is used to select packages. The way it constantly brings up the help screen is a *major* pain. How about a mode to look at *only* what is currently installed, so that you can remove things? -- Bob ./'^`\._./'~`\._./'~`\._./'~`\._./'#`\._./'~`\._./'~`\._./'~`\._./'^`\. / Rube Goldberg? Bah! Amateur! I give you..Windows 98! Linux everywhere \ | Linux, because everyone's work is mission critical. ANYTHING inside. | |_Bob McElrath (mcel...@wisconsin.cern.ch) Univ. of Wisconsin at Madison_| \.___________________________________________________________________./ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-alp...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listm...@lists.debian.org
From: mcel...@isp.nwu.edu (Bob McElrath) Subject: Re: Back to RedHat Date: 1998/09/24 Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.96.980924160221.1872C-100000@odin.isp.nwu.edu>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 394513513 Sender: debian-alp...@lists.debian.org References: <ygfemt1ntju.fsf@papadoc.nocrew.org> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Mailing-List: <debian...@lists.debian.org> archive/latest/1029 X-Envelope-Sender: mcel...@isp.nwu.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: linux.debian.alpha X-Loop: debian...@lists.debian.org On 24 Sep 1998, Turbo Fredriksson wrote: > [this is not a flame or rant, even though it will seem to be] Don't get me wrong, I think you guys are doing great work, and so far I like debian better than redhat (on the sucktel system I have), I was just trying to make some hopefully helpful suggestions...I can still play with .deb stuff on a redhat install. On the diversity of packages issue, I agree, diversity of packages is good. But it just seemed to me that everyone is trying their hardest to get every package under the sun into the archive, without worrying about whether they work or install properly. (lesstif, gtk being the biggest culprits). I guess the major problem I had was that I tried to install too much. I should have installed the absolute base minimum system and then incrementally added packages. As it was, with too many things installed, many of them broken...things all went to hell rather quickly. The *reason* I tried to install too much was that when going through dselect initially I noticed that the base setup didn't contain many essential utilities (though I can't remember which, networking stuff, I think). > It just is one of the differences in the systems... RH thinks there way is "The > Right Way" (probably tm), SlackWare have there, which they think is "The Right > Way To Go" (probably tm to :), and we, Debian have our way... But of course. Why do anything you don't think is right? ;) > > > 2) Few (if any) duplicate functionality packages. For instance, Debian > > > comes with like 7 mail-delivery-agents. What's with that? To a new user, > > > it's not clear which is best, and at times, even that you can only choose > > Now this point was the one that really got me! DIVERSITY!! As I recall, there were several "sets" of preselected packages. Workstation, network server, print server, etc... I needed functionality from several of these, and had to select packages by hand. *that's* where the difficulty started. > If you don't like DIVERSITY, freedom of choice, maybe you should stick with M$? > They will ram there OS down your trough, and you don't have any thing to say > about that. > > > *one*. Also, there are 3 different mutually exclusive ways to install the > > > gtk libs. (???) > > So? It's gets installed, right? Isn't that what you wanted? Why should it matter > that it can be installed in '3 different mutually exclusive ways'? gnome has its gtk libs (which it depends on). gtk1.1 is there too. selecting just one of them was a pain since anytime I selected any package that depended on gtk it brought up the annoying little help screen followed by dependency info. I'd suggest only bringing up *unresolved* dependency info. > > > 3) Whittle down the number of packages. At last count the main tree had > > > 1713 packages in it. It takes many hours to sift through that list and > > > decide what to install. And after doing so, you simply can't remember all > > > the "neato" little things you installed. I saw mention recently of trying > > > to keep up with the intel side of .deb's. Forget about it. Their community > > > is much larger and they will always churn out new stuff faster than us. Go > > > for a smaller set of stable packages instead of the latest whiz-bang stuff. > > Ahh... Here it is again... I think I've said enough about this issue... Use M$ > if you don't like freedom of choice... Even RH/SW have a lot of packages. Maybe I should reword that. Whittle down the number of packages in the *base*. Put the rest in contrib. > > > 6) dselect needs a major overhaul. Its key mappings are non-intuitive and > > > > You should take a look at apt. > > As he said, this is also worked on. The apt crew have done quite a nice piece of > software here, and it's being continusly improved... Hmmm...I selected it when I installed, but it didn't get installed...I tried to run it once or twice... ??? > -- Microsoft: Do less with more. UNIX on Intel: Do more with less. -- ^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ;) I love linux. Why I bought an alpha. ;) Ok, so the next time I mail to this list it'll be something useful, instead of a bunch of bitching. ;) -- Bob ./'^`\._./'~`\._./'~`\._./'~`\._./'#`\._./'~`\._./'~`\._./'~`\._./'^`\. / Rube Goldberg? Bah! Amateur! I give you..Windows 98! Linux everywhere \ | Linux, because everyone's work is mission critical. ANYTHING inside. | |_Bob McElrath (mcel...@wisconsin.cern.ch) Univ. of Wisconsin at Madison_| \.___________________________________________________________________./ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-alp...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listm...@lists.debian.org
From: c...@taz.net.au (Craig Sanders) Subject: Re: Back to RedHat Date: 1998/09/24 Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.980925093036.622F-100000@siva.taz.net.au>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 394558613 Sender: debian-alp...@lists.debian.org References: <Pine.SOL.3.96.980924160221.1872C-100000@odin.isp.nwu.edu> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Mailing-List: <debian...@lists.debian.org> archive/latest/1032 X-Envelope-Sender: c...@taz.net.au X-No-Junk-Mail: Do not send me junk mail under any circumstances MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: linux.debian.alpha X-Loop: debian...@lists.debian.org On Thu, 24 Sep 1998, Bob McElrath wrote: > On the diversity of packages issue, I agree, diversity of packages is > good. But it just seemed to me that everyone is trying their hardest > to get every package under the sun into the archive, without worrying > about whether they work or install properly. (lesstif, gtk being the > biggest culprits). i have nearly all GTK and GNOME packages installed. except for the odd app that doesn't quite work (not surprising, GNOME is alpha software after all), i haven't had any problems. while one or two apps may fail to do anything useful when run, they have all installed correctly and without causing any damage to the libraries or other parts of the system. ditto for lesstif. it's a library. it installs correctly. some apps use it, and run reasonably well. the behaviour of lesstif and that of "real" Motif 1.2 is different sometimes. this is normal....eventually, apps that care about that difference will end up with #IFDEF LESSTIF ... #ENDIF conditionals to cope with the differences, or lesstif will be patched to correct it's faulty behaviour. again, this is normal. > As I recall, there were several "sets" of preselected packages. > Workstation, network server, print server, etc... I needed > functionality from several of these, and had to select packages by > hand. *that's* where the difficulty started. the pre-selections thing allows you to select multiple sets. it's a good system...the only reason i don't use it is that i have been using dselect for years and prefer to (tediously and painstakingly) select each individual package - that way i get exactly what i want, nothing more and nothing less. i.e. the pre-selection thing is a short cut, dselect is more of a "precision tool". :-) > gnome has its gtk libs (which it depends on). gtk1.1 is there too. > selecting just one of them was a pain since anytime I selected any > package that depended on gtk it brought up the annoying little help > screen followed by dependency info. I'd suggest only bringing up > *unresolved* dependency info. that's what dselect does. it only brings up unresolved problems for you to resolve. once you resolve them, they go away (unless you select something which causes a different conflict) dselect is certainly NOT the easiest program to learn. in fact, learning it is probably the hardest thing about debian. in its favour, though, is the fact that it does work and it works well. dselect is difficult (but not impossible) to learn. IMO it is worth the effort. eventually, we'll have the user interface side of apt completed (both X and text-mode versions) and then we'll be over the UI problems. in the meantime, either use apt and/or dpkg from the command-line, or learn how to drive dselect. > > Ahh... Here it is again... I think I've said enough about this > > issue... Use M$ if you don't like freedom of choice... Even RH/SW > > have a lot of packages. > > Maybe I should reword that. Whittle down the number of packages in > the *base*. Put the rest in contrib. debian's "contrib" is not like redhat's "contrib". in redhat, "contrib" is random stuff packaged by random people on the net (often with no adherence to technical standards or distribution policies). the result is a risky "lucky-dip": some good stuff in there, but usually not. debian's "contrib" section is maintained by registered debian developers, using the same standards and policies as they do for any other debian package. the *ONLY* difference between packages in "main" and "contrib" is that contrib packages are Free Software which depends upon non-free software, while packages in "main" don't have any such encumbrances. > > As he said, this is also worked on. The apt crew have done quite a > > nice piece of software here, and it's being continusly improved... > > Hmmm...I selected it when I installed, but it didn't get installed...I > tried to run it once or twice... ??? install apt. then run dselect and choose "apt" as the Access method (first option on the dselect main menu). or run "apt-get" from the command line. or both. craig PS: try the debian-user mailing list if you run into problems with debian. one of debian's strengths is a large and helpful user community. -- craig sanders -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-alp...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listm...@lists.debian.org
From: dle...@home.com (David Engel) Subject: Re: Back to RedHat Date: 1998/09/25 Message-ID: <19980924204706.A2068@home.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 394582445 Sender: debian-alp...@lists.debian.org References: <Pine.SOL.3.96.980924160221.1872C-100000@odin.isp.nwu.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailing-List: <debian...@lists.debian.org> archive/latest/1034 X-Envelope-Sender: da...@c67032-a.grlnd1.tx.home.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: linux.debian.alpha X-Loop: debian...@lists.debian.org On Fri, Sep 25, 1998 at 09:56:56AM +1000, Craig Sanders wrote: > the pre-selections thing allows you to select multiple sets. it's a > good system...the only reason i don't use it is that i have been using > dselect for years and prefer to (tediously and painstakingly) select > each individual package - that way i get exactly what i want, nothing > more and nothing less. > > i.e. the pre-selection thing is a short cut, dselect is more of a > "precision tool". :-) I disagree about pre-selections being a good system. They are a one-time only shortcut at initial installation. They do nothing to help a non-expert/non-power user maintain a system over time. I like much better a couple of ideas I've mentioned before but have gone largely ignored. The first idea is to have, for lack of a better name, super packages. Super packages don't contain any files. Instead, they only contain dependencies on other packages. The advantage is that the desired set of packages can be changed by simply modifying the dependency list in the super package. The second idea is for dselect (or apt or whatever) to either automatically or at least offer to remove packages which haven't been explicitly selected by the user when no other installed packages depend on them. Anyone have a good name for this. The advantage is that the user doesn't have to tediously keep track of packages that are no longer needed. How many times have you wanted to try out a package only to find out that it installing it pulls in several other packages, then later decide you don't want/need it, go to deselect it and not remember all the other packages it pulled in? Here's a real world example of how the above ideas could work. The preferred libstdc++ development package recently changed from libstdc++2.8-dev to libstdc++2.9-dev. With the current pre-selection system, a user who is using hamm would have libstdc++2.8-dev installed. When that user upgrades to slink, he has to notice that libstdc++2.9-dev is now available, decide that it is preferred over libstdc++2.8-dev, explicitly select libstdc++2.9-dev and then explicitly deselect libstdc++2.8-dev to resolve the resulting conflict. In contrast, a c++development super package which changed from depending on libstdc++2.8-dev in hamm to depending on libstdc++2.9-dev in slink would automatically handle the replacement of libstdc++2.8-dev with libstdc++2.9-dev. David -- David Engel dle...@home.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-alp...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listm...@lists.debian.org
From: c...@taz.net.au (Craig Sanders) Subject: Re: Back to RedHat Date: 1998/09/25 Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.980925115520.622H-100000@siva.taz.net.au>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 394587376 Sender: debian-alp...@lists.debian.org References: <19980924204706.A2068@home.com> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Mailing-List: <debian...@lists.debian.org> archive/latest/1035 X-Envelope-Sender: c...@taz.net.au X-No-Junk-Mail: Do not send me junk mail under any circumstances MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: linux.debian.alpha X-Loop: debian...@lists.debian.org On Thu, 24 Sep 1998, David Engel wrote: > On Fri, Sep 25, 1998 at 09:56:56AM +1000, Craig Sanders wrote: > > the pre-selections thing allows you to select multiple sets. it's a > > good system...the only reason i don't use it is that i have been using > > dselect for years and prefer to (tediously and painstakingly) select > > each individual package - that way i get exactly what i want, nothing > > more and nothing less. > > > > i.e. the pre-selection thing is a short cut, dselect is more of a > > "precision tool". :-) > > I disagree about pre-selections being a good system. They are a > one-time only shortcut at initial installation. that's what it was designed to do. it does that job reasonably well. > They do nothing to help a non-expert/non-power user maintain a system > over time. no, it's not designed to do that. dselect and dpkg (and apt) are the correct tools for this job. > I like much better a couple of ideas I've mentioned before but have > gone largely ignored. > > The first idea is to have, for lack of a better name, super packages. > Super packages don't contain any files. Instead, they only contain > dependencies on other packages. The advantage is that the desired set > of packages can be changed by simply modifying the dependency list in > the super package. there used to be a package which did this. it was called 'chris-cust' or something like that. christoph lameter's preferred/standard selections. it's a good idea. i have my doubts about whether such packages are suitable for inclusion in debian itself or not...but they can be very useful to put in your own debian-local archive (especially if you configure apt to use .../debian-local/ as well as debian main, contrib, non-free, and non-us) craig -- craig sanders -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-alp...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listm...@lists.debian.org
From: bd...@gag.com (Bdale Garbee) Subject: Re: Back to RedHat Date: 1998/10/03 Message-ID: <199810030617.AAA09158@rover.gag.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 397281966 X-Envelope-Sender: bd...@gag.com Sender: debian-alp...@lists.debian.org X-Newsgroups: list.debian.alpha References: <19980924204706.A2068@home.com> Newsgroups: linux.debian.alpha X-Loop: debian...@lists.debian.org X-Mailing-List: <debian...@lists.debian.org> archive/latest/1138 In article <Pine.LNX.3.96.98092...@siva.taz.net.au> you wrote: : it's a good idea. i have my doubts about whether such packages are : suitable for inclusion in debian itself or not...but they can be very : useful to put in your own debian-local archive (especially if you : configure apt to use .../debian-local/ as well as debian main, contrib, : non-free, and non-us) Yep. I've got a similar package we use at work that forces a certain set of package decisions required for peaceful coexistence in our environment, which is implemented with dependencies. Then, the postinst runs a tool that tweaks a few things, including adding a root crontab entry to run our nightly system config freshener. We put it in our local package directory. Another thing we do is to pull selected packages from 'unstable' into our local package directory, when we want to force the inclusion of a newer rev even on systems that are running mostly-stable. Sendmail is a good example. Bdale -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-alp...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listm...@lists.debian.org