Ubuntu Linux experiences?

[Bill Sconce]

On Wed, 5 Jan 2005 16:28:33 -0500
Bill McGonigle <bill at bfccomputing.com> wrote:

> On Jan 5, 2005, at 3:29 PM, Travis Roy wrote:
> 
> > People bitch about RPM dependancy/conflict hell, but when you stay 
> > with the right distro and the correct version you rarely see it.
> > It's when you start using Mandrake rpms on a Fedora box or something 
> > like that when you really start to see problems.
> 
> Here's an interesting bit about Fedora RPM repositories:
> 
>    http://dag.wieers.com/home-made/apt/FAQ.php#D
> 
> So far no problems with dag packages for me on RC 9, FC1, or FC2.
> 
> -Bill


Well, there's an unavoidable architectural issue when a package depends
on a combination of things which aren't present on your system.  That is,
it's an issue which no package management system can prevent.  So Fedora's
policy, although it may seem a little stiff-necked(*) is one way of
dealing with a really tough issue.  (Their policy is to create a world
where all packages go through Fedora.)

It's true that if you stay with the right distro/version you can avoid
most of the troubles.  In fact, I believe ALL the troubles I've heard of
came after trying to install something from "outside".  Or, more accurately,
AFTER installing something from "outside", doing a system-level upgrade
from the main repositories, in Debian terms a "dist-upgrade".  

(Ouch.  Major destruction.)

One reason apt-get is so helpful is that, before it does anything, you
can look over the list of what it's about to change, and bail out if you
see that your foot is about to be shot off.  (I imagine the same thing
is true of RPM today, at least with yum.)

For instance, right now I'd dearly love to upgrade to the latest version
of my favorite editor.  I've started the apt-get (more than once - I'm
a slow learner), and then see that an upgrade of GTK is going to get
pulled in and HUNDREDS of packages are going to be upgraded.  There's no
way out of this.  The editor requires later libraries;  it won't build,
even from source, unless GTK is upgraded;  any packaged version is going
to depend on the newer GTK libraries;  messing with the libraries is
going to influence almost the entire system.  No package system can get
around this problem.  I believe apt-get will handle it correctly, but I
don't want to undertake a change of that magnitude - that's what distros
are for.  Apt-get CAN warn me, and does.  So I keep my feet intact and
wait for the next release of my distro.

(Which may be Ubuntu, eh.)

-Bill


(*) From DAG's URL above ("they" == Fedora):
     "I would like to be compatible with these repositories, but they
     have a policy to not work together with other repositories. 
     Compatibility works in 2 directions and if one party is refusing
     to care, it's impossible to make it work."