On Tue, Dec 05, 2006 at 09:06:43PM +0100, Leon Rosenberg wrote: > On 12/5/06, Christopher Schultz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >Apparently, very few responders realized what you were asking. > >Just in case it's not clear, Enrico is asking about Tomcat on Gentoo > >specifically, and it looks like he'd prefer to use the package manager > >which is called portage. > Oh, I think most of us understood that. However what most of us do not > understand, is why he's wishing to use the gentoo packages, despite > downloading it from source is proven to solve 90% of configuration and > dependency problems :-) Well, it seems quite understandable to me. Installing from source in a controlled-package environment like gentoo has side effects. One is, you just f'ed up your system security controls. Another is, you no longer have a clean, easily identifiable set of installed software. When I first started using linux, lo these many years ago, I kept a list of software versions and updates on index cards -- it was the only way I could keep track of what I had updated and when. "Configure, make && make install" has its charms, but as as method of maintaining an entire system, it is decidedly not best. And, anybody who has used linux for any length of time has been through the "dependency hell" of recursively installing and updating libraries in order to get some "needed" software to compile. I used gentoo for a while a couple of years ago. It has a very nice package management system. It's extremely flexible from a security standpoint and allows you to build a good, secure system. But, as Enrico is finding out, it is not best for a development machine. You can't depend on others to update the packages on your timetable. And creating a gentoo package is a nontrivial pursuit. That is why I am a Slackware user more or less continuously for nearly 10 years. Heh, I just can't break that "configure, make && make install" habit. Worse than cigarettes. Thanks. mp -- Michael Powe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Naugatuck CT USA "No provision in our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against the enterprises of the civil authority." -- Thomas Jefferson to New London Methodists, 1809. ME 16:332
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