apt-src - some ideas
Hi, apt-src, good start, really like the fact that it figures out dependancies and creates .deb file once complete and is fairly easy to use. However, there are some things I would like to see added at some point if possible: 1) Option to compile dependances as opposed to automatically downloading the dependant packages. 2) Option to add additional compile flags to gcc. 3) Option not to create a .deb file. I wouldn't want this but some people might. 4) With depandancies it would be nice to be told what must be installed and what depandancies are optional. 5) Not sure it this is possible, but maybe downloading source directly from author's site?? Comments? Jon __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Re: Are we losing users to Gentoo?
OK, howzabout some useful links that show that although Debian may be losing some users, which is still a shame, it perhaps not as bad as some would think. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=3614 http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=24417 The first link shows a poll done a while ago on which OS was used before Debian, and the second one ask specifically if someone has moved from Debian to Gentoo, which is a bit new to be mega useful, but still interesting. BTW, God I wish Debian had forums like this, far easier that email lists (and no I can't set this up before someone suggests it). Jon __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Re: Are we losing users to Gentoo?
--- Joey Hess [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: debianplanet.org has stuff like this (incidentially and only because I'm yeh I know but not as easy to use as Gentoo's are IMHO. BTW I agree with you regarding CD images. Gave up in the end trying to download and order CDs from Linux Emporium instead. Its was just too bloody painful :-( Jon __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Re: apt-src - some ideas
--- Joey Hess [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 1) Option to compile dependances as opposed to automatically downloading the dependant packages. I believe that apt-build can do this. Unfortunatly, Ok, I haven't looked at apt-build yet. 2) Option to add additional compile flags to gcc. pentium-builder lets you bolt this onto the side, but is a hack. Doing That great, got that installed so I'll have a play :-) 3) Option not to create a .deb file. I wouldn't want this but some people might. apt-src only builds debian packages if you pass it the --build option Whoops, I should rtfm a bit more closely. 4) With depandancies it would be nice to be told what must be installed and what depandancies are optional. We don't have a Build-Recommends or Build-Suggests, and it's not clear they're worthwhile at all (from the perspective of autobuilders). I more thinking along the lines of xyz apps need X and can optionally have GTK or QT as front end. So apt-src would inform you that you need X for it to work and the rest to get the fancy bits. I could add an option to apt-src to make it not resolve any build dependencies, and just warn about missing ones or something. That would be OK, although maybe a bit painful if there are a lot. Again the required vs. optional would need to be made clear. 5) Not sure it this is possible, but maybe downloading source directly from author's site?? Not something I want to touch. Maybe if everyone added watch files to their packages, then use uscan. Fair enough. Jon __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
deb-src
Hi, been playing with deb-src to see how it works. Interesting little utility. I noticed when it started the old ./configure that the arch was set to i386, but I prefer to have this set to my arch. I can't find anything in the docs that says if this is possible or not, anyone have any ideas? I was also wondering if it is possible to set any other flags on the command line such as omitframepointer? Thanks Jon __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Re: apt-src (was deb-src!)
Hi, apt-src? yup, sorry shouldn't write mail and do other stuff @ the same time. Don't fool with the Debian architecture name. It might be better to install pentium-builder instead. got that installed I pretty sure. Actually I was talking rubbish about it building against i386 arch, dunno why I thought that. It builds i686 fine. However the other question re passing optimization flags and other such stuff still remains. Can't see how you could do it, assuming that you can. Not big deal if you can't just would be nice to have. Any ideas anyone? Thanks Jon __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Re: Are we losing users to Gentoo?
Right I'm more awake now, its was late a night went I sent my last mail. A special thanks to Matt for his reply ;-) Right lets make this clear, I'm not here to push Gentoo, I was originally responding to the original question, is Debian losing users to Gentoo? Rather than bother arguing the point again, heres an interesting link: http://www.distrowatch.com/stats.php?1#04 The shows that the top 4 Distributions are: 1) Mandrake 2) Red Hat 3) Gentoo 4) Debian Whats really interesting in this list in that a source based distribution can make it into the top 5, the others are nowhere near. Anyway 'nuff said really on that point I think. I know its not exactly solid figures, but interesting nevertheless. Whilst its fine to say we don't care about this, and I tend to agree on that point, if Debian slips more this tends to mean less users. Less users means less testing, which means either a longer, God forbid, period between stable releases, or a less stable stable release due to lack of testing. It could also more less developers coming into the fold, which in turn affects releases and packages that can be offered. Now that we have X 4.2.1 in testing, maybe its a good time to do a point release? Get stable up to date, as testing is fairly up to date and seems stable at least on my boxes (x86). Radical thinking I know ;-) Whats really important here is not Gentoo and how its doing today, but Debian and how its starting to be perceived as outdated and outmoded and not the techie's choice anymore. This seems to be forgotten, but is more important than anything else. You may not care about people's perception, but that was due, partically, to UNIX's down fall when MS turning up with Windows. Everyone perceived UNIX to be complex and where quite happy to dump it in favour of NT. Perception, unfortunately, counts for a lot, technical excellance gets forgotten. Its crap I know, but that the way of the world. Jon __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Re: Are we losing users to Gentoo?
--- Tollef Fog Heen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: we. don't. have. a. working. installer. for. sarge. how hard is that to comprehend? Thanks for the witty reply but thats why I suggested a _point_ release, OK, its not the same as a major release, comprehend!!! A point release is. not. sarge. __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Re: Are we losing users to Gentoo?
OK I have enough of this for the moment, do what you feel is right but I'm not convinced that some of the directions things are going are for the benefit of Debian, the blinkers seem to well and truely attached to some people. To the people here who at least replied in a polite manner, thanks, and for those that see some of my points, maybe you have more time than me to follow them up. Looks like an uphill battle mind. I want Debian to be a key player, not an underdog or also ran, which some of you seem to be quite happy with. This annoys the hell out of me, Debian was once looked up to, now its the one with apt. Anyway enough Jon __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Re: Are we losing users to Gentoo?
--- Tollef Fog Heen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 'Multiple exclamation marks,' he went on, shaking his head, 'are a sure sign of a diseased mind.' (Terry Pratchett, Eric) Indeed, or someone who trying to convey that they are annoyed. | A point release is. not. sarge. stable does not gain new versions. (with a few exceptions, such as where backporting security fixes is ~impossible.) Are you sure? I seem to remember 2.2 getting a few releases, called them point or called them R# it means the same thing. Were this security only releases? (I'm can't remember) Jon __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Re: Are we losing users to Gentoo?
--- Matt Zimmerman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: No, it doesn't. It shows that the most frequently viewed distribution pages on distrowatch.com are: I did say they were not great figures, just interesting, but I expect this sort of comment from you. If you had lived through a stable Debian release cycle, you would realize that what you are asking for is not a point release. I been using Debian since 2.1, what about you? Your version of computer history is rather twisted. Care to provide a reference? Not really, its too much effect to put in for some one who has a problem with constructive feedback. Jon __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Re: Are we losing users to Gentoo?
--- Matt Zimmerman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Nov 26, 2002 at 01:58:25PM -0800, Jon Kent wrote: try to paint Debian as relatively unpopular. I don't see what your objective is, other than to start and prolong pointless arguments. What distrowatch tries to achieve is gauging interesting in a distro, anything in the top 5 can be considered to be rather well. I _not_ putting down Debian at all (last time I say that). I supplied in a helpful information, not more. If you want to stressed about it that up to you. I been using Debian since 2.1, what about you? If true, this would mean that you upgraded through all 7 point releases of Sorta yes and no. With 2.2 I moved over to testing after r3 as I needed stuff that was available only in testing. With 3.0 and did the usual dist-upgrade, but as I been really using testing and unstable for quite awhile I can't say I noticed anything major. That said I'll be doing a clean install of 3.0 next week maybe it'll be more obvious then. It's surely a lot more effect[sic] than inventing history to suit your needs. Very quickly then, I worked in a consultancy begin of the 90s doing UNIX stuff (Solaris/SunOS/SCO/SGI) in the City (London). UNIX stuff slowly started to slowly dry up after Win 95 came out and more so when NT arrived properly. There is a reverse trend now thank goodness and Linux is right at the front :-). My history is based around the banking world, yours maybe differant. Jon __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Re: Are we losing users to Gentoo?
OK, I think I can add something to this little chain mail as I use both Debian and Gentoo. Why do I do that? Well, Debian is great and all and I use it on servers etc, but on my workstation I want alot more control that Debian can, or probably ever can, give me. As an example, I don't want or use KDE so I do not want KDE libs installed just because some package maintainer decided to enable the KDE support option on app xyz. With Debian I have not choice with Gentoo I do, I disable KDE support using the USE variable. Very easy to do. Performance enhancements, well I seen a few, but nothing to shout about, it more about getting a higher degree of control over my workstation. __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Are we losing users to Gentoo?
Chaps, Another thing I must say is that I object in the highest order some the mail sent out regarding this topic which basically say good riddance to the users who have switch to Gentoo as they caused loads problems etc etc. This is short sighted and I hope the people (idiots??) who said this have no leadership real role within the Debian developer community. What we need to accept is there is a (percieved??) problem, or problems, with Debian as it stands today, these being (mainly) Hard to install (rubbish obviously) Out of date (this _is_ true) Slow to update (this _is_ true) Hard to configure (depends upon your view-point) The reasons I see people switch to Gentoo are : Its more fun Alot more up to date Easier to customise, down to which libraries you want to support Gentoo is still hard to configure if you are only used to Red Hat or Mandrake, easy if you used to Debian, Slackware etc. IMHO Debian is too slow to put out new releases. I run testing to ages with no problems, ever. Sure on my unstable box things went south at times but I expect that and can fix it, but testing is very solid, as solid as, say, Red Hat. I'm tempted to say that Debian has gotten too big, has too many bosses (to coin a phrase) and is hampered at times by its own policy. I've been using Debian for years and have seen it grown alot over time. However, it seems to me that the only _big_ thing Debian has on its side these days is dpkg/apt. Everything else is out of date, a nightmare to setup and, to be honest, not fun anymore. I want this to change, but to achieve that I think big changes are required from the ground up otherwise Debian _will_ go the way of Slackware. That all said, it will be interesting to see how Gentoo copes when it gets larger. I think it will cope better than we have purely because it source only and that makes life slightly easier. We'll have to see. My pennys worth Jon __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Re: Are we losing users to Gentoo?
Hi, Releases tend to be out of date. But that's a feature: releases need to be composed of well tested stable packages. testing and unstable have pretty up to date packages. So Debian is as up to date as you want; the caveat being that for newer software, you'll need to put up with some instability. It must said that comparing Gentoo with Debian in this regard is unfair as they are not like for like, being source against binary package. That said some things (X 4.2 springs to mind) take far too long to make it to testing. Presumably its up to dateness comes at the cost of less stability? So probably people should compare Gentoo not with Debian releases (stable), but with testing (or perhaps even unstable)? How do they compare then? Obviously I can only speak for myself, but my Gentoo boxes seem perfectly stable, never had a crash or lock up yet. However, of course, this probably has more to do with my choosen libraries, apps etc. Had sources not build for one reason or another, but I have so far found these problems easily fixed. Maybe there's some case for making a regular (once every couple of months or so) State of Testing announcement, describing the major features of testing, together with how to install it (either install stable release, then change /etc/apt/sources.list thusly, then do apt-get update; apt-get dist-upgrade, or perhaps actually preparing a Knoppix ISO containing testing). On the other hand, maybe this wouldn't be much use to anyone. I would agree that this might not be of much use to people. I think the best objective maybe to try and do at least 1 release a year, which is enough for most people. Do we gain much from this, well probably not directly no, however it looks good. I think some of the current issues related to the fact that Debian is seen as the snail of the pack when it comes to releases. Yes sure this is pandering to the masses a bit but it ensures that Debian stays in the limelight. Gotta go, think more about this later Jon __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Re: Are we losing users to Gentoo?
--- Jose Carlos Garcia Sogo [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Releases tend to be out of date. But that's a feature: releases need to be composed of well tested stable packages. testing and unstable have pretty up to date packages. This is true, but is not considered stable, hence the need to roll testing into stable at least one a year pref more. I would never use a non-stable (read production release) package on my servers. Could you run X 4.2 in, say, s390 that date? FYI, X is supported in 11 archs in Debian, a lot more than upstream supports. Ah, now this is an interesting point. I understand that X4.2 got delayed as it was not ready across all platforms. However i386 was ready but not relased until a far later date. I sorta understand this, but i386 is by far the most used Linux platform, so delaying it 'cos is not running under PPC seems a bit mad to me IMHO. And I want to make one question: where is the improvement in performance when I need two or three days to install a thing like GNOME or KDE? You'll need to use it some eons to get some earn with that. If you want to compile things because that makes fun to you, you can do. Like I said b4 (pls read the previous email) I don't believe there is much of an improvement, its the fact that I have more control that appeals. /me, tired of Gentooers I tempted to be rude back, but I won't. Needless to say if you read the previous emails you'd see that I run Debian on server and have used it for years. __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Re: Are we losing users to Gentoo?
--- Matt Zimmerman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, Nov 25, 2002 at 01:53:10PM -0500, Daniel Burrows wrote: That assumes that the runtime dependencies are a subset of the build dependencies and their recursive dependencies. Imagine a program that displays its output with gv: it doesn't need gv to build, but it needs it at runtime. Done any ebuilds lately? http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-howto.xml In the official ebuilds, all dependencies have already been specified, so when you issue emerge net-www/mozilla/mozilla-1.0, Portage will insure that all libraries necessary for Mozilla to build and run are properly installed before Mozilla itself is built. Portage even distinguishes between build-time dependencies and run-time dependencies. (Caveat: Currently, Portage installs all build-time and run-time dependencies and leaves it at that. At a later stage, it will be possible to trim your installation so that only the run-time dependencies are left installed). Point being?? Its not like-for-like and also thats not the point of this chain. Come on Jon __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Re: Are we losing users to Gentoo?
Never ask a Gentoo user that question. The answer is always one of the following: 1) I don't care 2) What's S/390? I really don't care ;-), when I am or 99.999% of Debian users ever gonna get near a S/390, high end Sun kit sure, but S/390 pls. Jon __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Re: Are we losing users to Gentoo?
Never ask a Gentoo user that question. The answer is always one of the following: 1) I don't care 2) What's S/390? I really don't care ;-), when I am or 99.999% of Debian users ever gonna get near a S/390, high end Sun kit sure, but S/390 pls. Jon __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Re: Are we losing users to Gentoo?
Hi, --- Steve Langasek [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So, volunteer your time and start packaging xserver-xfree86-experimental, if you think that's feasible. Just because the X maintainer chooses to give priority to keeping architectures in sync doesn't mean that it's not possible to provide structure within Debian that users of newer x86 hardware can't benefit from. However, you have no call to criticize Branden's priorities if you're not willing to commit your own time to improving Debian. Time, I'm afraid, is something I lack. Don't get me wrong the work Branden has done is great, what I'm trying to point out is that 4.2 is not in stable and, currently, will no tbe in stable for a year or more. Thats not good. I think 2.2 is still the default kernel in 3.0 (I could be wrong) and so on. This is not a good situation and it will only get worse is the situation does not improve. Sure I can grab this stuff from testing but I need it in stable in order for me to use in in a production system. This, obviously cannot happen at the moment as stable is a long long way off. Believe me, I've been around this for longer than I care remember, Debian will become an also-ran akin to Slackware if things do _not_ change. Jon __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
