Re: debian

On 2006-04-22, J.O. Aho <user@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Moe Trin wrote:
On Fri, 21 Apr 2006, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.linux, in article
<4ar1ktFub4ngU1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, J.O. Aho wrote:

I don't understand why distros don't put this site as a dekstop link, so
people could easily find programs that aren't provided by the distro itself.

Extremely simple. Binary packages should be compiled for the specific
distribution/release that the user has. A package built for one distribution
often will not work in others. Given that distrowatch has hundreds of
different and not always compatible distributions, do you expect the author
of software on freshmeat.net to provide versions for all distributions?

In way they do, they provide the source code, just use the gcc and you get a
binary compiled for your distro.


manager to install, but has a prerequisite or dependency of something in the
tarball that the user had installed manually.

This can be quite bad,

Most package managers do not
look for the file that is required, but consult a database of what packages
are installed.

The configure script does look for things the build needs to build and should
give you an error message which leads you to get what is missing.

IMHO knowing how to use configure should be somethign everyone should know.


//Aho

It's possible to do what you say. Many distros usually have some directory
that you can 'manage' yourself. However, if one does that a lot then one
loses the advantage of what a pre-packaged distribution offers. After a
while you've got your own private distro off in /usr/local/ or some /opt/
directory and you get caught up in writing symlinks over whenever you
upgrade the 'official' distro...it's not bad, it just can be a pain and it's
not so simple as you describe.

--
Debian let's you stuff anything you want in /usr/local/... and they won't
touch it during package upgrade.
.

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