Debian flamewar (was: OpenOffice doc...)

[Benjamin Scott]

  (Long-time members of this list will recognize the subject, which I drag
out whenever I get particularly irritated by all the Debian elitists who
think nobody's ever installed software before.  If you're not interested in
this kind of crap, just ignore this thread.)

  (The inflammatory nature of this message means I'll emphasize my usual sig
disclaimer as: EVERYTHING I SAY COULD BE A TOTAL LIE.)

On Wed, 9 Feb 2005, at 4:27pm, colet at code-energy.com wrote:
> Debian's equivalent of "rpm" is "dpkg".  Apt is sort of like up2date on
> a large quantity of steroids.  8)

  I've never, ever been that impressed by the functionality of apt-get vs
anything else.  Yes, it manages package dependencies.  So do/did yum,
up2date, rpmfind, and autorpm.  I've been having my RPM dependencies solved
for me for years and years.  It just really ain't all that impressive.  Get
over yourselves.

  The size of Debian's main package repository (the "distribution", really)
is really what most Debian zealots like when they say they like apt-get.  
It isn't the tool, it's the effort that goes into that repository.  That
repository is one of the things that keeps bringing me back to try Debian.

  Unfortunately, it appears to me that Debian people, apparently as a
universal rule, have no concept of software configuration management at all.  
So as the number of packages increases, the single-large-repository model
takes longer and longer to do integration testing.  That makes "stable"  
doomed to be perpetually hopelessly out-of-date.  Which is not good.  I keep
waiting for Debian people to realize that until they break things down into
manageable chunks, they're never going to make progress.

  Another really impressive but usually overlooked feature of Debian is the
general attitude that Free Software and community development are the way to
go.  Things like the Debian Social Contract and the Debian Free Software
Guidelines.  No other major distribution has anything like that.  Debian
takes the Free Software mindset (the "bazaar" if you're an ESR fan) and
applies it to the entire distribution.  That's cool.

  I also like Debian's emphasis on accountability.  Each package has an
official maintainer, who is ultimately responsible for that package.  
You're not dealing with a faceless corporate entity.  Got a problem, contact
the maintainer.  Maintainers need credentials (signed keys or a photo ID),
and have an existing maintainer vouch for them.  Nice.

  But all the Debian zealots just say "APT rocks and RPM sux!!" and wonder
why nobody cares.

On Wed, 9 Feb 2005, at 8:14pm, neil at jenandneil.com wrote:
> Use apt for more than a day and I'm sure you'll never look back at rpm.

  Apples and oranges.  "Use yum for more then a day, and I'm sure you'll
never look back at dpkg" would be equally (in)valid.

  I've used both dpkg and rpm, and IMNSHO, I think rpm is the better of the
two.  Some operations are a lot faster, and others are just a lot nicer to
use ("rpm -V" and "rpm -Uvh", for example).  And the build tools and source
management of rpm blow away Debian's offerings.  Or they did when I last
looked at them, which was admittedly a few years ago.  But given Debian's
rate of change, I don't expect it's that much different.

  The one thing that dpkg/APT gives you that I haven't seen yet in the RPM
world is the idea of associated (suggested/recommended/etc.) packages.  
That's something I miss.

-- 
Ben Scott <bscott at ntisys.com>
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