Re: Linux Compatibility Issue
From: David Z Maze (dmaze_at_debian.org)
Date: 02/14/04
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To: debian-user@lists.debian.org Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2004 11:25:25 -0500
Abdul Latip <dullatip@angin.com> writes:
> Once in a while, users are asking me about the compatibilty problem of
> Linux. They reasoning that M$Office can be installed anywhere like
> Win98, WinME, WinNT, et. al. Whereas it is hard to install a
> RedHat package into Debian, and so on.
...and it's hard to install Office on Red Hat, or a Debian package on
WinXP. This isn't surprising. :-) The closer analogy is that it's
almost as easy to install a Debian package on Debian potato, woody,
sarge, etc.
> AFAIK, CMIIW, this is related with the compiler version, the glibc
> version, the kernel version, and the kernel configuration and
> modules. May I know what exactly the Linux compability problem
> is ? I.E.: It seems they are not so backward compatible?
"What are you really trying to do?" There are some compatibility
issues, which mostly break into three parts: (1) it's hard to use
newer software against older versions of the C library; (2) other
libraries might have changed interfaces, so you need a newer or older
version; (3) a small amount of software depends on particular kernel
versions. Within Debian, (1) and (2) are dealt with by dpkg's
dependency system. If you want to install software that's only
available as RPMs (which IME is pretty rare), you can use 'alien' to
convert to a Debian package.
(My understanding is that Windows has tried to avoid changing core
interfaces so that (1) isn't a problem, but (2) still somewhat is
[think about the number of games that prompt you to install DirectX].
(3) is, too, but more with hardware drivers, and They don't want you
to think about that.)
-- David Maze dmaze@debian.org http://people.debian.org/~dmaze/ "Theoretical politics is interesting. Politicking should be illegal." -- Abra Mitchell -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-request@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org
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