Re: pros/cons of installing from source

On Fri, May 04, 2007 at 10:34:27AM -0600, Javier Vasquez wrote:
On 5/3/07, Greg Folkert <greg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Thu, 2007-05-03 at 22:38 -0600, Javier Vasquez wrote:
On 5/3/07, Greg Folkert <greg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
...
...

Nope, aptitude offers you the dependencies the distro developer
specifies (not just the application developer), some of them are
recommendations, some of them are strictly required. When you are to
compile the application yourself, you can find that even things
strictly required by a binary distro are really not. The reason is
that the distro developer compiled using a particular library for
example, when he/she could have used another or none. So on binary
distros one has 2 levels of non optional dependencies I believe, the
ones set by the original package developer, and the ones set by the
distro developer for the package. This is not true on sourceMage, not
sure on gentoo (it looks like people immediately thinks of gentoo when
talking about source based distros) since I don't know about it, and
it's just because the only really required dependencies on sourceMage
by policy are the ones set by the original package developer.

Whether this makes a difference or not, it depends on the system one
wants to get.

I specifically picked "gd" for that very reason. It supports eleventy
options. The reason I picked it, is because the linked set of libraries
for Debian pulls in some xlibs on even cursor based systems.

Basically the changelog said something like:

"the linking of the code against xlibs, only slightly increases
the pull in of files amounting to 72KiB, these days this small
amount of disk space does not matter. The performance is not
affected in any way, but allows for 98% coverage and reduces
package count by 12 flavors. If you must have no xlibs, compile
it yourself without it."

Which, to be honest, is the exact same reason people "restore or rebuild
classic cars" or heavily customize the "ricers" they own, or build thier
own house or hand craft the Linux Distro of their choice.

I might be wrong though about how debian package developers compile
things though, I'm not one, and it might be that there's a policy to
keep as required dependencies only the ones set by upstream, but I'm
not aware of it.

There is the Debian Developers Guide and the Debian Free software Guide.
These BOTH have an effect on the Original Source code. BTW, you do know
that *EXCEPT* for non-free pieces (like non-source firmware and binary
blobs) that Debian include *.orig.tar.gz for everything? They also have
a *.diff.tar.gz... so following your comment about "keeping upstream
untouched as much as possible" is not-genuine. Debian does this, but at
the same time folowing the DFSG.

As a side note, something I liked from sourceMage was its policy of
keeping upstream code untouched as much as possible. I don't know of
any binary distro trying to keep up with that. However this is beyond
the discussion since there's a lot to talk about that, just something
to mention, :).

I mentioned Debian Policy (Set forth by the Debian Free Software Guide)
as being the BEST reason to run Debian Linux... or Debian FreeBSD or
Debian period.

For anything else I agree. Just wanted to clarify a bit further about
the dependencies comment. For not compiling the kernel as a
suggestion, well, again it depends (I don't totally agree). For a
regular user with 40GB of HD or more, there's no problem on having a
blotted set of modules he/she will never use. If you have limited HD,
you'd like to compile only what you need, and not everything so far
supported by the kernel (besides you get more tunned configuration at
the same time for free if you want, I provided the pentium M example,
but I bet there are more, like the kind of pre-emption, the frequency,
etc, not that one gets better performance, but that one gets the right
tunned configuration for the system, and not just a blotted generic
one). Same thing applies to other packages. One might want to remove
any gnome/QT dependency as much as possible, one might not support
some graphics libraries although required for the general purpose,
etc.

Good enough, I could pick, but won't. :-P

...

I am fully up on Gentoo. I like its handling, its tools for helping in
dealing with packaging and other features... specifically not using
upstart (at the moment) and other pieces that traditional UNIX systems
have more in common with it. Gentoo is very friendly, it is just picky
about its friends.

Please, if I'm completely wrong about my comments on dependencies, let
me know. Maybe there's a debian policiy talking about this (is there
a pointer?) that I'm not aware of, and I was just talking non sense,
:).

The Debian Social Contract and the DFSG is located:
http://www.debian.org/social_contract

The Developer's Guide is located:
http://www.debian.org/devel/

Specifically though if you want to really read on policy:
http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/

It ain;t short, but it will help you understand things like we have been
discussing.
--
greg, greg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

You mentioned debian commitment to FSF and its social contract, as
very good reasons by themselves to run debian. I totally agree.
However debian is not the only distro with such commitment. Actually
sourceMage picked debian social contract and modified it a bit...
snip...

I understand Greg's comments to be about Debian's commitment to
enforcing a packaging policy, i.e. a policy on where and how things
are installed. To me is quite a different thing than a social
policy. In Debian, if the install scripts of a package to not put
things where the policy says they should be _that_ is a bug in the
package. It may also be considered a bug in some other distro.s. I've
not kept track of this sort of policy issue in any other distro. since
I discovered Debian.

The Social Policy is also good. But I think it is easy to feel good
about a Social Policy, and it is hard work to implement a packaging
policy.

--
Paul E Condon
pecondon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Relevant Pages

  • Re: pros/cons of installing from source
    ... > specifies (not just the application developer), ... > strictly required by a binary distro are really not. ... > distros one has 2 levels of non optional dependencies I believe, ... for Debian pulls in some xlibs on even cursor based systems. ...
    (Debian-User)
  • Re: why debian - longer
    ... Debian provides a stable target that will not change; ... depend on "httpd" which is provided by some dozen packages. ... other distro; ... You are confusing home user targeted distro with admin targeted distro - two ...
    (Debian-User)
  • Domain Controller - Active Directory errors galore
    ... I have a Debian Linux VM running Samba and recently ran ... If I run the Domain Controller Security Policy or Domain ... Type: warning ...
    (microsoft.public.win2000.advanced_server)
  • Re: Choosing a distribution (was: Just a simple query)
    ... Living with a distro is often far different than a fresh install. ... finally reach Debian but it is not: openSUSE is powerful enough to fit ... can be used as a start point to get the user introduced into the Linux ...
    (Debian-User)
  • Domain Controller - Active Directory errors galore
    ... I have a Debian Linux VM running Samba and recently ran ... If I run the Domain Controller Security Policy or Domain ... Type: warning ...
    (microsoft.public.win2000.active_directory)