Re: changing to Debian from Mandrake
Jeffrey W. Baker wrote: ... ALSA is another package that is screwed up in unstable but you can blame ALSA developers for that, not Debian. also note that alsa itself is officially unstable, so it's expected to be broken from time to time (the alsa itself, not only debian alsa package). the API is still undergoing changes (even though that part should be almost over now that they are at 0.9) ... GNOME without an X server (for which you need xserver-xfree86 package) and I think that's the package you have to explicitly install after updating from X 3.x to X 4.x (not sure if that's still the case, but I had to do it when I did the upgrade) erik
Re: Re: changing to Debian from Mandrake
DvB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: To be more explicit, apt-get upgrade will not, under any circumstances, install new packages... 'apt-get upgrade' will install new packages if they're required by another package that you have installed (and is being 'upgraded'). This will happen if package 'A' now requires package 'B' when with the previous version it didn't. 'apt-get upgrade' will, of course, prompt you about the additional package(s). Hall
Re: Re: changing to Debian from Mandrake
On Wed, Oct 31, 2001 at 08:30:22AM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: DvB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: To be more explicit, apt-get upgrade will not, under any circumstances, install new packages... 'apt-get upgrade' will install new packages if they're required by another package that you have installed (and is being 'upgraded'). This will happen if package 'A' now requires package 'B' when with the previous version it didn't. 'apt-get upgrade' will, of course, prompt you about the additional package(s). The apt-get(8) man page claims differently: upgrade upgrade is used to install the newest versions of all packages currently installed on the system from the sources enumerated in /etc/apt/sources.list. Packages currently installed with new versions available are retrieved and upgraded; under no cir cumstances are currently installed packages removed, or packages not already installed retrieved and installed. New versions of currently installed packages that cannot be upgraded without changing the install status of another package will be left at their current version. Is the man page wrong? -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: changing to Debian from Mandrake
Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Oct 31, 2001 at 08:30:22AM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: DvB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: To be more explicit, apt-get upgrade will not, under any circumstances, install new packages... 'apt-get upgrade' will install new packages if they're required by another package that you have installed (and is being 'upgraded'). This will happen if package 'A' now requires package 'B' when with the previous version it didn't. 'apt-get upgrade' will, of course, prompt you about the additional package(s). The apt-get(8) man page claims differently: upgrade upgrade is used to install the newest versions of all packages currently installed on the system from the sources enumerated in /etc/apt/sources.list. Packages currently installed with new versions available are retrieved and upgraded; under no cir cumstances are currently installed packages removed, or packages not already installed retrieved and installed. New versions of currently installed packages that cannot be upgraded without changing the install status of another package will be left at their current version. Is the man page wrong? I'll have to find a package that has a new dependency vs what the old, installed package has and try it... If 'upgrade' doesn't do this, you will end up with a non-working program. Don't you agree ?? Regards Hall
Re: changing to Debian from Mandrake
%% [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: upgrade upgrade is used to install the newest versions of all packages currently installed on the system from the sources enumerated in /etc/apt/sources.list. Packages currently installed with new versions available are retrieved and upgraded; under no cir- cumstances are currently installed packages removed, or packages not already installed retrieved and installed. New versions of currently installed packages that cannot be upgraded without changing the install status of another package will be left at their current version. h If 'upgrade' doesn't do this, you will end up with a non-working h program. Don't you agree ?? No... re-read the description. If the package can't be upgraded without adding new packages (or removing existing packages), then it won't be upgraded. Thus, everything will still be consistent after the upgrade. But, you might not have all the latest available versions of all the packages. If you explicitly ask for a package to be installed (or upgraded), using apt-get install, then it _will_ add/remove packages if it needs to do so in order to get that package installed. If any packages need to be added or removed, apt-get will tell you and ask you if you want to proceed or not. Also, if you use apt-get dist-upgrade, then it will attempt to change your package set to as close to the latest packages as it can, and that may well include adding new packages or removing older ones. Again, apt-get will notify you and ask for confirmation. HTH! -- --- Paul D. Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] HASMAT--HA Software Mthds Tools Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional. --Mad Scientist --- These are my opinions---Nortel Networks takes no responsibility for them.
Re: changing to Debian from Mandrake
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I'll have to find a package that has a new dependency vs what the old, installed package has and try it... If 'upgrade' doesn't do this, you will end up with a non-working program. Don't you agree ?? As I said, if a currently installed package requires a package that isn't currently installed before it can be upgraded, that package is kept back I.e. supposing there are 2 packages on the system that have new versions but require new dependencies that aren't currently installed on said system, after running apt-get upgrade apt will say 0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 2 not upgraded and proceed to do nothing. You will then have to upgrade the packages separately and resolve dependencies (I suppose a dist-upgrade would also accomplish that).
Re: changing to Debian from Mandrake
Thus spake Michael Kaminsky ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): * One reason I moved to Mandrake from Redhat (from Slackware) is that the packages are extremely up-to-date. Even the unstable version of Debian seems sorely lacking. Mandrake seems to put out RPMs within 1-2 days of the upstream developers. There are still no Debian packages for software I use regularly that's been out for 1 month (according to the debian web page package search form). Example: gnucash. GnuCash is a bad example :-) I just this month switched to Debian from 3+ years of Red Hat and I'm quite happy with the up-to-date-ness of packages. Some night this week, I'll get to detailing how I went about compiling GnuCash 1.6.4 (the latest) from source and am using it fine. This was my only real hang-up. The only other things I had to do from source were Firestarter (no deb), muttprint (slightly old), SpamAssassin (and related Perl mods -- no deb), and kbiff (no deb). -- Justin R. Miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] PGP/GnuPG Key ID 0xC9C40C31 (preferred) pgp7p72v6qeG4.pgp Description: PGP signature
RE: changing to Debian from Mandrake
Apt + dselect seem very powerful... Have the people who wrote these systems outlined their correct usage in a FAQ/manpage/etc.? I'm less familiar with Linux than you, but I can tell you based on recent Debian experience that there's a How-To document for apt at http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/apt-howto/. In Chapter 3 it talks about managing packages and says you can use a file /etc/apt/preferences (I'm not sure if apt_preferences is newer or simply a typo) to do such things as gracefully back out of a dist-upgrade to unstable all or selected packages. The version of apt that has this feature is *ironically* not in the stable distrubution, however! -Kris -Original Message- From: Michael Kaminsky [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2001 11:50 AM To: debian-user@lists.debian.org Subject: changing to Debian from Mandrake I'm been using Mandrake for the past couple of years, and now I'm considering switching to Debian; but, I have some concerns. I consider myself a fairly experienced Linux user and use Linux for all my computing needs (devel, digital camera stuff, laptop stuff ,text processing, networking, etc.). I would like input on the following: * One reason I moved to Mandrake from Redhat (from Slackware) is that the packages are extremely up-to-date. Even the unstable version of Debian seems sorely lacking. Mandrake seems to put out RPMs within 1-2 days of the upstream developers. There are still no Debian packages for software I use regularly that's been out for 1 month (according to the debian web page package search form). Example: gnucash. Also, in some cases the package I want is up-to-date, but not all of its dependencies. Example: gnumeric. Version 0.72 requires a version of guppi for which there is no Debian package. * Apt + dselect seem very powerful, efficient if you use them together correctly. From the mailing lists, though, correctly seems to be a matter of confusion (or perhaps just preference). RPMs don't cut it for bleeding edge multiple-dependency upgrades (as you all know well). This reason is key to my wanting to change over. Have the people who wrote these systems outlined their correct usage in a FAQ/manpage/etc.? Also, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to upgrade to testing or unstable once you install. From the mailing lists, it seems like magic one-line commands such as apt-get dist-upgrade leave much manually fixing left to do. Apparently one can live mostly in testing but grab select packages from unstable by configuring pins in an apt_preferences file. Are there simple instructions for doing so? Again, people on the mailing lists seem confused and/or have varied opinions on how the mechanism is supposed to work. * Mandrake has very decent system configuration tools. I spent many years editing scripts and config files to setup up Linux machines, but it just takes longer when it comes to simple, basic tasks (adding a network interface, changing the runlevel configuration for daemons, etc.). Does Debian provide such tools (even if clearly they don't work for all situations)? I apologize for the length; any advice/comments would be appreciated. Thanks, Michael -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: changing to Debian from Mandrake
On Tue, 30 Oct 2001, Michael Kaminsky wrote: I'm been using Mandrake for the past couple of years, and now I'm considering switching to Debian; but, I have some concerns. I consider myself a fairly experienced Linux user and use Linux for all my computing needs (devel, digital camera stuff, laptop stuff ,text processing, networking, etc.). I would like input on the following: Slackware's 7-year reign over my systems ended recently, so maybe my comments will apply to your situation. * One reason I moved to Mandrake from Redhat (from Slackware) is that the packages are extremely up-to-date. Even the unstable version of Debian seems sorely lacking. Mandrake seems to put out RPMs within 1-2 days of the upstream developers. There are still no Debian packages for software I use regularly that's been out for 1 month (according to the debian web page package search form). Example: gnucash. The gnucash package is pretty far behind, but it is an anomoly. Most packages are up-to-date. Mozilla and Galeon, for example, are usually available 1-2 days after release, and these are very difficult packages to build. ALSA is another package that is screwed up in unstable but you can blame ALSA developers for that, not Debian. Also, in some cases the package I want is up-to-date, but not all of its dependencies. Example: gnumeric. Version 0.72 requires a version of guppi for which there is no Debian package. Not really true. Gnumeric doesn't depend on Guppi, it suggests it. You can install Gnumeric 0.72 today and it works fine, although without graphs. Guppi 0.40 came out only a little over a week ago so I expect packages really soon. This will probably break gnucash, though :) * Apt + dselect seem very powerful, efficient if you use them together correctly. From the mailing lists, though, correctly seems to be a matter of confusion (or perhaps just preference). RPMs don't cut it for bleeding edge multiple-dependency upgrades (as you all know well). This reason is key to my wanting to change over. Have the people who wrote these systems outlined their correct usage in a FAQ/manpage/etc.? I have never seen a document of dselect best practices, but that is a good idea. After installing the system, I haven't had to use dselect at all. Also, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to upgrade to testing or unstable once you install. From the mailing lists, it seems like magic one-line commands such as apt-get dist-upgrade leave much manually fixing left to do. Apparently one can live mostly in testing but grab select packages from unstable by configuring pins in an apt_preferences file. Are there simple instructions for doing so? Again, people on the mailing lists seem confused and/or have varied opinions on how the mechanism is supposed to work. In my experience installing three machines, the best way to install unstable is to install 2.2r3 with as few packages as possible. For example, it should be possible to install a system that includes only apt and related packages, bash, init, and libc. Then once your very minimal system is up, you can dist-upgrade painlessly to unstable. Now, using dselect, you can select all the software that you want/need on your system. The most difficult thing seems to be that XFree86 packages don't have strong dependencies and have some ordering requirements that aren't expressed via apt. For example, it is possible to completely install GNOME without an X server (for which you need xserver-xfree86 package) and you'd better install xfonts-base before you install any other X package or your fonts will not work right (also make sure that you install debconf first or you may miss some important questions). These requirements aren't shown to the user and aren't expressed programmatically so they can cause problems for new Debian users. -jwb
Re: changing to Debian from Mandrake
Michael Kaminsky wrote: I'm been using Mandrake for the past couple of years, and now I'm considering switching to Debian; but, I have some concerns. I consider myself a fairly experienced Linux user and use Linux for all my computing needs (devel, digital camera stuff, laptop stuff ,text processing, networking, etc.). I would like input on the following: * One reason I moved to Mandrake from Redhat (from Slackware) is that the packages are extremely up-to-date. Even the unstable version of Debian seems sorely lacking. Mandrake seems to put out RPMs within 1-2 days of the upstream developers. There are still no Debian packages for software I use regularly that's been out for 1 month (according to the debian web page package search form). Example: gnucash. unstable is quite up to date, testing is only few weeks behind. sometime there are problems with particular package - e.g. the gnucash, afaik the maintainer is going to upload package in fairly short time (in cases where maintainer cannot update package for long time and other people use package some other developer uploads package (NMU - non-maintainer upload), or takes over maintenance of package (if the package is orphaned)). If you check the mailing list you will see that there is unofficial package for gnucash (actually for the dependency, I think). * Apt + dselect seem very powerful, efficient if you use them together correctly. From the mailing lists, though, correctly seems to be a matter of confusion (or perhaps just preference). RPMs don't cut it for bleeding edge multiple-dependency upgrades (as you all know well). This reason is key to my wanting to change over. Have the people who wrote these systems outlined their correct usage in a FAQ/manpage/etc.? Also, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to upgrade to testing or unstable once you install. From the mailing lists, it seems like magic one-line commands such as apt-get dist-upgrade leave much manually fixing left to do. Apparently one can live mostly in testing but grab select packages from unstable by configuring pins in an apt_preferences file. Are there simple instructions for doing so? Again, people on the mailing lists seem confused and/or have varied opinions on how the mechanism is supposed to work. there are few glitches here and there but generally changing your source from potato to testing or to unstable work quite fine. the problem is when the structure of packages changes - e.g. X 3 to X 4 you have to apt-get install some packages. in most cases line: apt-get update apt-get dist-upgrade works fine. You might want to use dselect if you like its way to handle recommended packages (apt-get ignores them). as long as you use the debian tools (apt-get, dselect, aptitude) you can install/uninstall/upgrade without any worries (well, within reasonable limits of 'any'). * Mandrake has very decent system configuration tools. I spent many years editing scripts and config files to setup up Linux machines, but it just takes longer when it comes to simple, basic tasks (adding a network interface, changing the runlevel configuration for daemons, etc.). Does Debian provide such tools (even if clearly they don't work for all situations)? to certain extend. some packages are configured upon installation (you can reconfigure them later using package tools). Some configuration is handled using update-* commands (menus, runlevels, alternatives (e.g. which window manager is THE window manager, which vi clone should be used for vi etc.) as far as I know there is no debian network config tool (there is one for ppp). I've seen people recommending webmin. there's also linuxconf (I don't like it, it's messy) you have to do some manual editing of config files, even if tools are available (e.g. samba - it is configured upon installation, there is also config tool but I still find it easier to just edit the config file, same/similar for postfix, apache, squid). editing config files is a lot more flexible (how do you comment what you did and why in gui tools?) and usually faster (and easier: to do, to troubleshoot) then using config tools. erik
Re: changing to Debian from Mandrake
Michael Kaminsky wrote: * One reason I moved to Mandrake from Redhat (from Slackware) is that the packages are extremely up-to-date. Even the unstable version of Debian seems sorely lacking. Mandrake seems to put out RPMs within 1-2 days of the upstream developers. There are still no Debian packages for software I use regularly that's been out for 1 month (according to the debian web page package search form). Example: gnucash. The gnucash package maintainer is on his honeymoon, apparently. It's not impossible for someone else to put out an update on his behalf, but I guess nobody has found it to be an urgent thing to do. The packages needed to get the most recent gnucash package running are available from my package archive at http://crdic.ath.cx/debian . In general, I have found that Sid (Debian unstable) usually gets packages for new releases of important software pretty quickly. We had emacs21 within 24 hours of its release, IIRC. And it worked, too. Also, in some cases the package I want is up-to-date, but not all of its dependencies. Example: gnumeric. Version 0.72 requires a version of guppi for which there is no Debian package. Yes, looks like guppi needs an update. But according to the gnumeric package, gnumeric isn't dependent on guppi; it's only suggested. I haven't observed gnumeric having any problems because of the lack of a current guppi, but then again I don't use spreadsheets often and I don't know when I last tried to use Guile or graphs in gnumeric. * Apt + dselect seem very powerful, efficient if you use them together correctly. From the mailing lists, though, correctly seems to be a matter of confusion (or perhaps just preference). RPMs don't cut it for bleeding edge multiple-dependency upgrades (as you all know well). This reason is key to my wanting to change over. Have the people who wrote these systems outlined their correct usage in a FAQ/manpage/etc.? I'm not sure why people are confused about this. I just started using Debian (converting from Red Hat 6.2) earlier this year, and I've had no problems with apt+dselect aside from dselect's slightly weird interface. Also, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to upgrade to testing or unstable once you install. From the mailing lists, it seems like magic one-line commands such as apt-get dist-upgrade leave much manually fixing left to do. Not in my experience. I installed Potato, then added the sources.list lines for Woody, ran dselect and updated, let it install everything it wanted to. Then added the sources.list lines for Sid, ran dselect again. There were probably a few cases where I had to choose between conflicting packages, but it was no big deal, as I recall. One trick (which I should have thought of before going through this process myself) is to start out with a very minimal Potato installation, upgrade that to Woody, then to Sid (if you want to go all the way to unstable), and only then, once your minimal setup is all upgraded, install everything else you want. That makes the upgrade path much easier, and the upgrades obviously go faster. Craig
Re: changing to Debian from Mandrake
Michael Kaminsky said: of Debian seems sorely lacking. Mandrake seems to put out RPMs within 1-2 days of the upstream developers. There are still no Debian packages for software I use regularly that's been out for 1 month (according to the debian web page package search form). i consider this a GOOD thing. having stable packages are good. i don't want to upgrade every day. i reccomend mandrake for newbies but despite all its new stuff it has a ton of problems last time i used it.(which was a while ago i admit). each distro has it's strength. one of debian's is it is stable, one of mandrakes is it has the bleeding edge. Example: gnucash. i don't even balance my checkbook so i don't have a use for a program like gnucash. * Apt + dselect seem very powerful, efficient if you use them together correctly. From the mailing lists, though, correctly seems to be a matter of confusion (or perhaps just preference). RPMs don't cut it for bleeding edge multiple-dependency upgrades (as you all know well). This reason is key to my wanting to change over. Have the people who wrote these systems outlined their correct usage in a FAQ/manpage/etc.? if i was to need such a bleeding edge system i would use slackware probably. you lose much of the advantage of debian in my opinion by using such bleeding edge things, might as well stick to compiling from source only. testing but grab select packages from unstable by configuring pins in an apt_preferences file. Are there simple instructions for doing so? if i need something from unstable(which is rare) i use the source function of apt-get (apt-get -b source packagename) never messed witht he apt preferences and never heard of pins. as far as upgrading, changing lines in sources.list and doing update ; dist-upgrade with apt-get is the easiest way to go. i would never reccomend such a thing for a newbie though, i'd consider it a good thing that there is no option to go straignt to unstable or testing from a potato installation. (you can do it by manually editing the sources.list on install i believe but its not obvious). * Mandrake has very decent system configuration tools. I spent many years editing scripts and config files to setup up Linux machines, but it just takes longer when it comes to simple, basic tasks (adding a network interface, changing the runlevel configuration for daemons, etc.). Does Debian provide such tools (even if clearly they don't work for all situations)? one thing i hated about mandrake was the fancy gui configuration crap. it took quite a while back with mandrake 7.0 (? or was it another 7.x) it broke BADLY with dhcp. i ended up having to hack up the startup scripts to manually run a dhcp client on boot since the internal stuff never worked. while it is true that debian has a steeper learning curve once you get there its great. i suppose i am biased as i have used so many other systems like solaris tru64 irix, aix hpux freebsd openbsd etc etc that its hard to think about 'ease of use' compared to what i use on a daily basis(the above). for some tasks i like to use webmin (http://www.webmin.com - i believe it is packaged as well in testing or unstable). one thing that linux could use -- is if IBM would open the source and port SMIT to linux. that would be great !! I'd love it if linux distros had a common configuration BACKEND(then have whatever frontend you like). AIX's backend works something like this: /usr/sbin/mknfsmnt -f '/stuff/workspace' -d '/stuff/workspace' -h 'nis-wa' '-n' '-B' '-a' -t 'rw' -w 'bg' -K '3' -k 'udp' '-y' '-Z' '-X' '-S' '-j' '-q' '-g' that adds a NFS filesystem to be mounted NOW and at boot using udp as the protocol, nfs version 3, and a bunch of other defaults. of course that command is called from a fancy point-and-click interface(SMIT). but the idea is great, a command-line backend to the system which can easily be called from any GUI app. i converted the current company im at from redhat to debian. when i started we had redhat everywhere, the mail servers had to be rebooted from time to time as they would just stop accepting connections! no errors, they would just 'die'. installing one of my homebrew kernels helped a lot but it wasn't until we replaced redhat with debian that the issues went away. to end i'll just say again that mandrake is good at being on the bleeding edge. redhat is too on the bleeding edge (gcc 2.96 and glibc 2.2). i like them to be, so their users can hit all the bugs and get them fixed before they touch my systems. most every distro has it's strengths. i'd be very happy if i could use debian potato for the next 5 years on my servers with seucrity updates and stuff. workstations need a bit more up to date software especially X. im a firm believer against the 'latest is greatest' idea that so many commercial software vendors like to implant in their customers. if there was backports of security fixes in
RE: changing to Debian from Mandrake
Debian has got a lot better, in the way it handles network configuration. Currently pretty much everything you need is in the /etc/network directory. Just add interfaces to the interfaces file. If you have any questions in particular I would be glad to help. -Tim. * Mandrake has very decent system configuration tools. I spent many years editing scripts and config files to setup up Linux machines, but it just takes longer when it comes to simple, basic tasks (adding a network interface, changing the runlevel configuration for daemons, etc.). Does Debian provide such tools (even if clearly they don't work for all situations)? Thanks, Michael
Re: changing to Debian from Mandrake
on Tue, Oct 30, 2001 at 01:50:08PM -0500, Michael Kaminsky ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: I'm been using Mandrake for the past couple of years, and now I'm considering switching to Debian; but, I have some concerns. I consider myself a fairly experienced Linux user and use Linux for all my computing needs (devel, digital camera stuff, laptop stuff ,text processing, networking, etc.). I would like input on the following: * One reason I moved to Mandrake from Redhat (from Slackware) is that the packages are extremely up-to-date. Even the unstable version of Debian seems sorely lacking. Mandrake seems to put out RPMs within 1-2 days of the upstream developers. There are still no Debian packages for software I use regularly that's been out for 1 month (according to the debian web page package search form). Example: gnucash. Also, in some cases the package I want is up-to-date, but not all of its dependencies. Example: gnumeric. Version 0.72 requires a version of guppi for which there is no Debian package. My experience is that Debian unstable tends to be pretty up-to-date (notable exception in my experience: Mozilla, Q1-Q2 2001, which was hanging around 18-n ferfukinevah, but it got over that). The usual problem is confounded dependencies or package organization upstream. The benefit: you're getting a good balance of _current_ and _functional_. If you're interested in closely tracking recent builds of a package, MVAO is that Debian gives you the edge by babysitting the rest of the system while you wrestle with bleeding edge programs and support. Install same under /usr/local or use alien to convert RPMs. You're going to have to resolve deps on your own though. * Apt + dselect seem very powerful, efficient if you use them together correctly. From the mailing lists, though, correctly seems to be a matter of confusion (or perhaps just preference). Generally, there are two classes of package management tools: those that handle single packages, and those that handle groups. dselect, capt, and aptitude are full-screen interfaces in which multiple packages may be selected, queried, and installed interactively. dpkg and apt-get are command-line interfaces better suited for installing single packages or small sets, once you know what you're looking for, _or_, in the case of apt-get, doing a full update of your system. My experience is that you use dselect when you're doing an initial install, then do one-off package installs with apt-get as needed, and system upgrades with apt-get on a regular basis. I rarely go back to the full-screen frontends. Also, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to upgrade to testing or unstable once you install. Change your /etc/apt/sources.list source pointers. * Mandrake has very decent system configuration tools. So does Debian: vim, emacs, nano, I spent many years editing scripts and config files to setup up Linux machines, Debian uses the Extra Straightforward Readable® config script format and layout. My other GNU/Linux experience is largely RH, and its config scripts are a sorry mess. Even frontends such as LinuxConf don't manage to find and update all scripts reliabily. but it just takes longer when it comes to simple, basic tasks (adding a network interface, $EDITOR /etc/network/interfaces changing the runlevel /usr/sbin/update-rc.d configuration for daemons, etc.). Does Debian provide such tools (even if clearly they don't work for all situations)? Generally, yes, either through command line tools or (previously mentioned) far saner config files. Peace. -- Karsten M. Self kmself@ix.netcom.com http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What part of Gestalt don't you understand? Home of the brave http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ Land of the free Free Dmitry! Boycott Adobe! Repeal the DMCA! http://www.freesklyarov.org Geek for Hire http://kmself.home.netcom.com/resume.html pgpvrNMxWSpzY.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: changing to Debian from Mandrake
On Tue, 2001-10-30 at 18:50, Michael Kaminsky wrote: I'm been using Mandrake for the past couple of years, and now I'm considering switching to Debian; but, I have some concerns. I consider myself a fairly experienced Linux user and use Linux for all my computing needs (devel, digital camera stuff, laptop stuff ,text processing, networking, etc.). I would like input on the following: I am a few months down the line from where are you now. I 've been through Slackware, then RH52, RH62, MDK7.0, MDK8, Mandrake Cooker and finally Debian unstable. I finally stopped booting into Mandrake two months ago, and am not going back... * One reason I moved to Mandrake from Redhat (from Slackware) is that the packages are extremely up-to-date. Even the unstable version of Debian seems sorely lacking. Mandrake seems to put out RPMs within 1-2 days of the upstream developers. There are still no Debian packages for software I use regularly that's been out for 1 month (according to the debian web page package search form). Example: gnucash. That is the only example of a package which is not the latest release in unstable I can think of. Personally I don't know why it is so delayed, maybe the maintainer is on a break and no-one else has bothered to release it, or there are issues with it. I've found that there are far more programs available in unstable than there are in Mandrake Cooker or RedHat. * Apt + dselect seem very powerful, efficient if you use them together correctly. From the mailing lists, though, correctly seems to be a matter of confusion (or perhaps just preference). RPMs don't cut it for bleeding edge multiple-dependency upgrades (as you all know well). This reason is key to my wanting to change over. Have the people who wrote these systems outlined their correct usage in a FAQ/manpage/etc.? apt-get update updates the local package list. apt-get upgrade upgrades all installed packages to the latest release apt-get dist-upgrade is more clever and is normally only used if you a) are upgrade across distributions (stable - testing, testing-unstable, etc), or b) if you are running unstable and major changes have taken place. Also, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to upgrade to testing or unstable once you install. From the mailing lists, it seems like magic one-line commands such as apt-get dist-upgrade leave much manually fixing left to do. Apparently one can live mostly in testing but grab select packages from unstable by configuring pins in an apt_preferences file. Are there simple instructions for doing so? Again, people on the mailing lists seem confused and/or have varied opinions on how the mechanism is supposed to work. I've found unstable to be very reliable. Before you upgrade have a quick look at #debian on irc.debian.org or check the debian-devel mailing list. If everything is okay, just run the dist-upgrade and everything is fine! If a config file changes format or something, you are offered choices about what to do and all existing files are backed up. As far as I recall, I've never been left with a system broken due to config files after a dist-upgrade. Rarely a package is updated which turns out to be broken (this happened to PAM recently, which broken logins!), but these issues are fixed quickly and APT will cache old packages so if everything really does break, just reboot in single-user mode and reinstall the working versions. * Mandrake has very decent system configuration tools. I spent many years editing scripts and config files to setup up Linux machines, but it just takes longer when it comes to simple, basic tasks (adding a network interface, changing the runlevel configuration for daemons, etc.). Does Debian provide such tools (even if clearly they don't work for all situations)? Many packages supply config tools when the install. exim, the default mailer, is a good example. Basically there is a wizard which asks a few questions and builds a config file which does the job. However, I believe LinuxConf has been ported to Debian... Regards, Ross
Re: changing to Debian from Mandrake
Ross Burton wrote: Example: gnucash. That is the only example of a package which is not the latest release in unstable I can think of. Personally I don't know why it is so delayed, maybe the maintainer is on a break Honeymoon, we've been told. As far as I recall, I've never been left with a system broken due to config files after a dist-upgrade. Rarely a package is updated which turns out to be broken (this happened to PAM recently, which broken logins!), Hardly recently; it was several months ago, as I recall. February or March, I think. And we've had no problems of similar magnitude since then. The nastiest problem I've seen recently was the broken binutils that couldn't build kernels, which also was fixed quickly. but these issues are fixed quickly The broken PAM package was fixed within a few hours, as I recall, though due to the way the package repository works, you had to download it manually from incoming.debian.org if you didn't want to wait for the next daily update. Craig
Re: changing to Debian from Mandrake
* Apt + dselect seem very powerful, efficient if you use them together correctly. From the mailing lists, though, correctly seems to be a matter of confusion (or perhaps just preference). RPMs don't cut it for bleeding edge multiple-dependency upgrades (as you all know well). This reason is key to my wanting to change over. Have the people who wrote these systems outlined their correct usage in a FAQ/manpage/etc.? apt-get update updates the local package list. apt-get upgrade upgrades all installed packages to the latest release apt-get dist-upgrade is more clever and is normally only used if you a) are upgrade across distributions (stable - testing, testing-unstable, etc), or b) if you are running unstable and major changes have taken place. To be more explicit, apt-get upgrade will not, under any circumstances, install new packages. This is useful if you don't want apt installing a buch of extra packages without your knowledge to satisfy dependencies for an already installed package. It's also the most common cause of kept back packages... at least for me (you can usually solve kept back problems with apt-get install kept-back-package). dist-upgrade, OTOH, will install new packages to satisfy dependencies, which is why it's mostly useful, as stated above, for upgrading between versions (i.e. stable-testing-unstable).
