Questions about Ubuntu

[Neil Joseph Schelly]

On Thursday 18 September 2008 09:48, Bruce Labitt wrote:
> Can one use apt with Ubuntu?  Does that get one out of most of
> dependency hell?  I thought apt was similar (I believe many say even
> better) to yum and yast.

Dependency hell in a Debian system largely would come from using packages 
outside of the distribution for a different OS or different version.  As with 
any system, you can probably fake it for packages that haven't changed much, 
smaller packages with fewer dependencies, or with packages for similar 
systems (just one version away or at least similar base packages like libc, 
KDE/Gnome, etc).  

In many years of Debian usage, I've rarely ever had to think about getting 
packages from somewhere other than my APT sources.  With Ubuntu, I've seen 
software distributed as a deb file for Ubuntu in particular, so it's more 
likely that you can find software for Ubuntu from other sources it seems, 
especially if it's desktop software.  Ubuntu's universe and multiverse 
sources especially demonstrate that.  

Honestly, I think the Dependency Hell that is associated with Fedora/RH 
systems is mostly historical (or I thought anyway).  I know that lots more 
how-tos for those systems do talk of getting packages from other sources too 
easily though, so perhaps there's more community acceptance of 
arbitrarily-packaged software.    I don't know.  Ultimately, with any system, 
Debian or RedHat-based, you should probably avoid going outside the primary 
sources unless you really have to, and even then try to stick to packages 
that you know are packaged for you.
-N