Re: Migrating from RedHat to Debian

From: Stephen Cornell (cornell_at_zoo.cam.ac.uk)
Date: 11/07/03 

Date: 07 Nov 2003 12:43:41 +0000

Andy Baxter <news3@earthsong.null.free-online.co.uk> writes:

> At earth time Thu, 06 Nov 2003 15:03:54 -0500, the following transmission
> was received from the entity known as Madhusudan Singh:
>
> > 3. Is it possible to properly convert RH rpms into meaningful Debian
> > dpkgs ? For instance, I use the Intel Fortran Compiler, which is
> > distributed in rpm format alone (at least till now, maybe they will
> > respond to this RedHat decision soon). Would it be possible to translate
> > that ?
>
> There's a program called alien which does this, but I've never had to use
> it so I don't know how well it works. The main problem is likely to be
> with the pre/post-install scripts.

I used alien to convert the Intel Fortran compiler to a .deb. The
.deb installed alright, but I found I had to edit by hand the scripts
that set up the environment variables, i.e.
/opt/intel/compiler70/ia32/bin/ifcvars.* ; this job would usually done
by the script that installs the rpms (remember that you usually don't
install the intel compiler rpms directly). Email me for more details.

The other package that I alien'ed was `Powerchuteplus', the
proprietory software that manages my APC UPS. This works fine.

> > 4. Not to start a flame war, but how different is FreeBSD really from
> > linux (in terms of the learning curve specifically in terms of 1, 2 and
> > 3 above) ?

I like it a *lot*. Like Debian, it emphasizes stability and
correctness over bleeding-edge performance, and it has an excellent
reputation for robustness. FreeBSD has a very powerful administration
tool, and everything feels very tightly integrated. I'd say that the
learning curve is steeper than Debian, but the BSD way of doing things
has a very appealing directness and consistency. However, patching is
not quite as straightforward as Debian (`update your ports tree and
recompile'), and in spite of its legendary reliability I once hung a
FreeBSD box by trying to mount a floppy disk.

I use Linux because of the greater range of software (!); I never had
the chance to try out FreeBSD's Linux compatibility, but some
commercial applications such as Win4Lin are known not to work. I also
don't know of a way to convert RPMs to FreeBSD packages. 

-- 
Stephen Cornell          cornell@zoo.cam.ac.uk         Tel/fax +44-1223-336644
University of Cambridge, Zoology Department, Downing Street, CAMBRIDGE CB2 3EJ

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