Package management

[Bill Sconce]

On Tue, 15 May 2007 13:01:32 -0400
Charlie Farinella <cfarinella at appropriatesolutions.com> wrote:

> I only asked how other people handle this particular issue.


I responded offline to Charlie, with some CCs.  One of the CCs
answered, "I think this was one of the better answers.  It's too
bad you didn't post it to the list."

-Bill

__________________________________________________
From: Bill Sconce <sconce at in-spec-inc.com>
To: Charlie Farinella <cfarinella at appropriatesolutions.com>
Cc: ...
Subject: Re: Package management
Date: Tue, 15 May 2007 21:32:25 -0400

On Tue, 15 May 2007 13:01:32 -0400
Charlie Farinella <cfarinella at appropriatesolutions.com> wrote:

> On Tuesday 15 May 2007, Neil Joseph Schelly wrote:
>   
> > Then it seems your question is a disguised version of "Which distro is
> > best?"   
> 
> I didn't ask anything at all about what is best, I only asked how other 
> people handle this particular issue.


I've had this issue repeatedly, and in fact am coping with it now.
Debian does all the heavy lifting (I've always had either two or three
versions of Python to dance around, including the need to leave the
version pointed to by the unadorned "python" command as-the-distro-
expects-it-for-various-utilities.)  So I form the habit of typing
"python2.4" or "python2.5" when I need a specific version.  All of
these are handled by apt-get & Co. out of the box.

Then for bleeding-edge (e.g., python 2.5.1, which I'm working with
now) I'm beyond the distro's package-management system.  (Which is
probably going to happen from time to time no matter what the
distribution.)  So it's ./configure / make / make altinstall.  In
the case of Python make altinstall foresees and copes with the
problem of not stepping on the world which the package-management
system knows about; all is well.

Next I'm going to have to deal with trying to run wx in a version
past what's available via package management.  I hope wx is as well
behaved as Python, but there are no guarantees...  And living on the
bleeding edge is not the package manager's responsibility, whatever
the distro.  Fortunately there are usually no more than a handful
of packages which you need 

For things that you can ascribe to a package manager's responsibility,
Debian is my choice.  (I think that was your question.  But the list
is no place to give an answer to "what distro" -- evidently.)

HTH?

Bill