Quote: Original post by C-Junkie

Quote: Original post by Doc
This is both a disadvantage and an advantage. Since there are so many options you can almost always find the right one for you. The problem is that the right one for you is always going to be anywhere from slightly to enormously different to what is the right one for any other person.

Yeah, but they slowly come around to an actual solution.

For example, let's take a look at the major players in distro land today.

Novell, Red hat, and debian[-based] distros.

These three are the big ones. Take note, for example, that all three either tend to, or outright embrace Gnome as the desktop of choice. All three attempt to support that whole LSB thing (marginal though it may be for now).

Not to say that there aren't disagreements. Java vs C# vs "OMG Java is nonfree and mono won't build on s/390!" (Debian does deserve a few good digs, but at least repos with java and mono in them are a very short sources.list addition away...) But on a lot of the core issues, things are getting more unified than it might seem.

Suse's default desktop is still KDE, as is knoppix's and mepis.

I didn't realise that debian had any sort of default desktop or even encouraged one though...

Quote: Original post by metal leper
Suse's default desktop is still KDE, as is knoppix's and mepis.

But not Novell's Desktop Linux. and SUSE is owned by Novell. Eventually, putting effort into two seperate duplicate efforts will, at the very least, be slimmed down. Gnome is not losing any of Novell support, so you know where that's going to come from.

Quote: I didn't realise that debian had any sort of default desktop or even encouraged one though...

It's certainly the default. (install debian, use tasksel to install "desktop environment" and create a user. reboot. gdm comes up. Log in, gnome comes up) and while there's no official preference, the majority of debianites do use gnome. (and consider major debian-derived distros. userlinux is going "we support gnome only," and ubuntu is all gnome.)

As for knoppix and mepis, I've never even heard of mepis (just discovered it's a debian-derivation. huh.), and ubuntu's live cd kicked the pants off of knoppix last I saw of it.

I forgot Mandrake - KDE is the default for that (and for Yoper (quite high on the distrowatch rankings (for what they are worth), as is Mepis) and Kanotix (allegedly "knoppix but better")), and I've always been under the impression that KDE is more popular than gnome.

As for the future of KDE in Suse, only time will tell I guess, but if Novell Desktop Linux and Suse remain as separate projects, there's no reason why they should both use the same DE (you could even argue that it makes sense for them not to)

Either way this is quite off topic, and fluxbox is better than both ;)


I've never had much of a problem with dependencies, having spent 90% of my time as a linux user using Debian and Gentoo (though I had some problems with Debian - like when it wanted to remove all the KDE packages just to let me install anjuta)

Quote: Original post by metal leper
As for the future of KDE in Suse, only time will tell I guess, but if Novell Desktop Linux and Suse remain as separate projects, there's no reason why they should both use the same DE (you could even argue that it makes sense for them not to)

Well, there is good reason: $$$. Developers cost money.

Quote: Original post by Doc

Quote: Original post by Kylotan
I was amazed that I was expected to download 136MB of kernel source just to compile a driver.

So... you'd like it to be more modular?

Quote: I have lots and lots of libraries that I had to install for individual programs that required them.

So... you'd like it to be less modular?

I'd like things to be appropriately modular. If you're developing software that uses a library which few others use, then think long and hard about whether to use that library, and consider statically linking it if it's not common. And if I need some source in order to recompile things, I shouldn't need absolutely every single piece of source. There's no contradiction in my two points.

Quote: I'd like to be able to see at a glance what libraries something requires, and how big those libraries are (or at least were when this package was built).

Debian does seem to handle it well from what I've heard. But I wish other people would stop suggesting that a manager that simply downloads and installs everything you need is the answer. I don't want to try and install a 2MB program and have it suck 100MB of libraries across the net, to be installed on my system automatically just for this one app. If I then remove that app, do the libraries remain? On Mandrake at least, they do. You end up with your system getting clogged up with libraries you don't use, or rarely use, when the application you were testing is long gone. I'm guessing this is a large part of why my 'minimal' Mandrake install is 15x as large as my Win98 SE install.

[Edited by - Kylotan on February 2, 2005 6:40:28 PM]

I know you can use emerge in gentoo to see what dependencies will be installed, but is there a way to find out what size they are, other than looking it up.

wizards & C-Junkie:

Yeah, you don't have any dependency problems because people already took care of them for you. The programs you do get are beyond old, and thats the fallacy of apt.

and to ot:

Most of my programs share a common dependency, so I don't complain too often. If you want to install a program, but don't have to worry about its dependencies, thats where I like FreeBSD. If its in the ports, it will build the program and all of its dependencies by just typing 'make install clean', raid the fridge, and by the time you get back its done.

-brad

Quote: Original post by nicksterdomus
I know you can use emerge in gentoo to see what dependencies will be installed, but is there a way to find out what size they are, other than looking it up.

Giving the 'verbose' argument to emerge will give the sizes of each package. eg

emerge -pv foo

Quote: Original post by Kylotan
Debian does seem to handle it well from what I've heard. But I wish other people would stop suggesting that a manager that simply downloads and installs everything you need is the answer. I don't want to try and install a 2MB program and have it suck 100MB of libraries across the net, to be installed on my system automatically just for this one app. If I then remove that app, do the libraries remain? On Mandrake at least, they do. You end up with your system getting clogged up with libraries you don't use, or rarely use, when the application you were testing is long gone. I'm guessing this is a large part of why my 'minimal' Mandrake install is 15x as large as my Win98 SE install.

IIRC debian will uninstall packages that got installed as deps of of something else and are no longer needed automatically, but maybe not...

Gentoo doesn't do this automatically, but an "emerge depclean" will do it


And you can't compare win98 to a version of mandrake released in 2004/2005 or whenever*. Compare a linux install from 98 to your win98 installation. I can easily get linux to take up much less space than windows XP does, and I'm sure when Windows Longhorn comes out it will use up at least as much if not more space than a linux distribution released at about the same time (and that's not any sort of anti-windows/linux is great comment, in case anyone was going to bother getting annoyed)


*ok, so you can compare them, but that doesn't mean you should ;)

Quote: Original post by metal leper
And you can't compare win98 to a version of mandrake released in 2004/2005 or whenever*. Compare a linux install from 98 to your win98 installation.

Why can't I make that comparison? I wanted about the same types and quantities of programs installed, to run on the same hardware. I don't mind the cd coming with loads of stuff, but I do object to not being able to remove most of it due to the tangled dependency trees. I expect some code bloat over time, maybe 2x or 5x, but not 15x.