Yeah, I switched to Slackware from Mandrake because I was pissed off everytime I wanted to compile something... Always missed some -dev packages, always had to swap Mandrake CDs while looking for a certain package and it''s -dev... And Slackware doesn''t have that and is only on 1 CD


darkone
Registered Linux User #317188

quote: Original post by Goober King
Could we posibly make updating things any harder in linux? I mean realy. I would love it if I wasting entire days trying to make things work. Oh wait..I already am. I know some of you guys are not big fans of RPMs but I''m lovin them about now. I have had many things install just fine with them if they were packaged right. I have yet to ever I mean EVER compile and install something from the source. There is always something wrong and after researching it for hours I usaly find out that is beyond my ability to fix. I''m not totaly lacking in computer smarts but digital IQ just isn''t high enough to handle some of the crap that gets thrown to me by this crasy little OS. The only constant in this place is that nothing ever works like they tell you it will. If any problem is ever answered by an FAQ I will be shocked.

Why am I ranting? Odds are you don''t care and cant help but I''ll tell you anyway. First I thought Hey I need a scanner. Ok It sure would be nice if it worked under linux. So I look at their little known to work list and found one that is "Stable" that I could buy at the store. So I do. Plug it in and right away it knows what it is. Fantastic. So I scan and the system crashes. Not the nice everything is goofy kinda crashing but total lockdown, must hit reset button crash. I thought this was a difficult thing to make linux do yet here we have it. A few test and it would seam that it works great untill you scan something bigger than a index card. No talk about this anyware being a probem. Well as there is one newer version of sane I thought I could try it. With a little work it apeared to have installed. Yet I would seam that I am still running the older version. I cant find an old version hiding. The new one probably wont work but I would be good to try.

So it looks like I''ve wasted the last 24 hours trying to make something happen thats not going to happen. Which isn''t the first time. I have yet to get my two systems wired up together due to another rampant problem where there is so much damn information on something you cant figure out what actualy is importaint in your case. Then desperatly trying to figure out what all they asume you know in the first place. Ok rant over. I''m gona go cry now. Oh...Forget that part.

[edited by - Goober King on July 31, 2003 3:53:27 PM]

Did you make sure the RPM package of sane that you installed was the right one for your distro? Not all distros install their stuff in the same locations. If all else fails, grab a tarball and compile from sources.

[Cyberdrek | the last true sorcerer | Spirit Mage - mutedfaith.com][ Administrator & WebMaster GuLSE]

Actualy I never install sane via RPMs. It was included in the install of the OS. When I tried to update the version I infact did compile from the source as sane RPMs are hard to come by. Only it for some reason is still running the older version not the newer one. I guess they(Mandrake) installed it in some crazy place. Also as I said everything does work. The problem was with running it under KDE, of which I am a loyal fan. I must scan under Gnome which is fine but not ideal. The only thing I''m concerned about is if I do want to install a newer version if I will be able to. Which may not be an issue because by that time I will probably be running a newer version of linux all together.

It was mentioned by someone that they had many problems compiling from the source with Mandrake. I have used Mandrake for a while and I like having all the handy system config programs that keep things simple. However I do have a second system that maybe could be running a different more "config, make. make install" friendly distro. I would gladly take recomendations with reasons. I would point out while I have some computer skills, they do lack in respect to many of you other guys. So I may not be ready for an overly hard core linux adventure.

Yeah... packaging and dependencies are one of the worst aspects of the OS, although I only have experience with Red Hat and Mandrake.

RPMs aren''t abstract enough. Why should you need different RPMs for different platforms? Instead, the package should be more generic and each platform should have a config file that translates the generic install paths into precise ones.

Then you have the fact that RPMs tend to need other RPMs... install something from source and an RPM that requires it may not install. So sometimes you have to try and trick it with checkinstall. Other times you have something like pkg-config there. And ./configure is simply the biggest hack I have ever seen. Not that building everything from source should be considered the primary option. I have had to install hundreds of megabytes of development libraries just to get basic things to compile. I''ve been advised, with all seriousness, to install every ''devel'' library on my cds... which amounted to something like half a gigabyte when uncompressed. Anyway, I doubt I could have managed to compile even the 4 of 5 things that I did without already being fairly familiar with compiler output, standard and common libraries, and using rpmfind though. There''s certainly a steep learning cliff there.

I keep hearing "Use Debian". So... maybe that''s the answer, and Debian''s system may replace RPMs in a year or two.

[ MSVC Fixes | STL Docs | SDL | Game AI | Sockets | C++ Faq Lite | Boost
Asking Questions | Organising code files | My stuff | Tiny XML | STLPort]

Being CONSISTENT about packaging, and making sure it WORKS IN ALL CASES is really boring, not-at-all-sexy work that you have to pay people to do, or it won''t be done in a consistent, maintainable fashion.

Ever wonder why Linux has drivers for every SCSI driver under the sun, but no workable printer management solution that a regular user could understand? Now you know. It''s not sexy.

Open source works great for things that are sexy, and programmers want to work on. For everything else, there''s the paycheck.

Makes for fine servers, and that SCSI and networking throughput is really top notch.

Linux on the desktop? I can''t stop laughing.

quote: It was mentioned by someone that they had many problems compiling from the source with Mandrake. I have used Mandrake for a while and I like having all the handy system config programs that keep things simple. However I do have a second system that maybe could be running a different more "config, make. make install" friendly distro. I would gladly take recomendations with reasons.

Well, they don''t really come any easier for this than source-based distributions such as Gentoo or Source Mage (Source Mage is what I''m using to write this message). Source-based distributions are those in which *all* the packages are compiled from source (except those for which no source is available, such as flash). They have a number of advantages, such as the software being more up-to-date and more easily updateable (in SM, it''s usually a matter of changing a version number). For example, as I write this, I''m in a Gnome 2.2.2 login, with Abiword-1.99.2, Evolution-1.4.3, Gnumeric-1.1.19, and Gimp 1.3.16 on a 2.4.21 kernel. The disadvantage of this, of course, is instability and slow installations. For example, upgrading some package or other caused gnome-panel and nautilus to fail, which made the GUI portion of my system useless (KDE is not installed). Recompiling the whole system (this was probably not necessary, but I was going out of town for a day, so I could just leave it running, and recompiling a source-based distribution is 99% certain to flush out the problem) took more than 24 hours. There''s reputedly some speed advantage, but it''s not noticible except from distros that don''t compile their packages with the relocation information that the dynamic linker needs for loading C++ libraries quickly (aka KDE progs load slow).

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
Being CONSISTENT about packaging, and making sure it WORKS IN ALL CASES is really boring, not-at-all-sexy work that you have to pay people to do, or it won''t be done in a consistent, maintainable fashion.

I''m not so sure. I expect there would be a hefty dose of sex appeal to the first team to come up with something that works in all cases.

quote: Open source works great for things that are sexy, and programmers want to work on. For everything else, there''s the paycheck.

You have to think outside the box and recognise that the whole world need not work on "I make this, so I sell this" lines. Microsoft don''t make any (significant) money from selling Internet Explorer but I can guarantee you that it does far more than pay its way. There''s more than 1 method of generating revenue.

"Microsoft don't make any (significant) money from selling Internet Explorer but I can guarantee you that it does far more than pay its way. There's more than 1 method of generating revenue."

Unless it has changed since the lawsuit, you pay for IE (and Windows Media Player, etc) when you buy windows. The was MS makes money is making you buy everything, not just the stuff you need/want.

Goober King - Did you try recompiling your kernel? It may be as simple as setting an option in the config.

And as may have been already mentioned - all your source ocmpiling problems will go away if you stop using redhat (you are using redhat, right?) and switch to a 'real' distro (www.slackware.com, and hey! its free).

[edited by - thedustbustr on August 8, 2003 8:25:54 PM]

I have tried RedHat, Debian, Caldera OpenLinux, and SuSE, and SuSE is BY FAR the best one for installing and setting system stuff and drivers and all the other things people don''t like about Linux.

quote: Original post by clum
I have tried RedHat, Debian, Caldera OpenLinux, and SuSE, and SuSE is BY FAR the best one for installing and setting system stuff and drivers and all the other things people don''t like about Linux.

I agree. YaST is the best config utility so far!