Is there a Linux this this ?

[ptek]

Hi all,

I've tried on the past Red Hat, Debian and some other linuxs and I was seriously disapointed with all...

The package systems management are just insane !

An example : I pretended under Debian to install package A.
package A had dependecies on package B. So package B was completly installed (everything on B was installed, even documentation, not only the common files which A needed !)
Then package B needed package C and so on, and so on ...

Result : Instead of using 150kB of HD storage installing a simple little utility like A, I've lost 60MB ! :-o

Man, I payed for that HD! That made me mad and I throw Debian away.


So, my question is : is there a linux flavour that processes   the package installation in a efficient way, installing only the common files among the packages instead of copying them all ?

BTW : Is there a version os KDE or Gnome that runs on 640x480 without problems ?

Some say "linux is free".
I say linux "linux is free ... as long you don't have to buy a new 17 ou 19 inches monitor and a bigger hard disk"  :pissed:

[nOw2]

So, my question is : is there a linux flavour that processes   the package installation in a efficient way, installing only the common files among the packages instead of copying them all ?

No, install the files by hand from .tar.gz

Some say "linux is free".
I say linux "linux is free ... as long you don't have to buy a new 17 ou 19 inches monitor and a bigger hard disk"  :pissed:

Linux is free if your time has no value.

[ptek]

Linux is free if your time has no value

 :-D  :-D  :-D  :-D  :-D  :-D  :-D
Good point !

[macto]

I'm going through the same thing with my first Amiga, only the packages are much smaller. ;-)

Linux is a bit extreme, and there is only one way to get around it: avoid applications which incorporate too many features.  For example, mutt and pine are good email readers.  Yet a lot of people ignore them because they are character based applications and don't allow you to view formatting or embedded graphics.  But a GUI would require widgets (gtk+ and qt are the popular widget libraries these days), formatting may require an HTML parser (which may be provided by another library), and the ability to view images will require more code (typically provided by the jpeg, png, tiff, etc. libraries).  No Linux programmer wants to develop all of that code on their own, so they grab what is available.

Another problem is competition between libraries.  For example: gtk+, motif, and qt are just three libraries which provide widgets.  There are many others too.  Motif wasn't free (as in cost or liberty) originally, so people looked to qt.  While qt was free in cost, the license didn't offer much freedom.  But the widget library was nice and comprehensive, so some people used it.  Other developers wanted a free (as in GPL) widget library, so gtk+ came into being.  The other widget libraries were largely developed to suit other needs, such as the desire to avoid bloated widget libraries.

As I suggested earlier, you can avoid a lot of the problems by choosing your software carefully.  It is part of the culture of Unix, and one of the reasons why I think Unix will never catch on among people who don't appreciate the many details of their system, or the choice it provides.  Is it a waste of time?  Maybe to some, but it isn't in my opinion.  Then again, I'm spending a considerable amount of time to get a 68k Amiga to work. :insane:

[ptek]

No, install the files by hand from .tar.gz

Hmmm ... How can I know the files from package B needed by package A ? What command should I use ?

[Argo]

Hmmm ... How can I know the files from package B needed by package A ? What command should I use ?

Not to mention C, D, and E.
Oh, just get a 350 GB HD and install everything. Sometimes it just seems easier.

[mikeymike]

My personal favourite was from trying Linux a few years ago, where I wanted to install package A.  Package A depended on package B, which depended on package C.  Package C wouldn't install without package B.

[WarPiper]

I happen to like Mandrake, I have never tried debian or suse or redhat (at least since 5.1) but I stick to mandrake and rpm files, its just a little easier.

[Seehund]

mikeymike wrote:
My personal favourite was from trying Linux a few years ago, where I wanted to install package A.  Package A depended on package B, which depended on package C.  Package C wouldn't install without package B.

# rpm -i A.rpm B.rpm C.rpm



Or use something that finds and installs the dependencies from your distro CDs or the 'net, like yum, apt and whatever else they have these days.

[mikeymike]

This was a few years ago.  AFAIK rpm was the only known one around then.

[WarPiper]

Seahund: seeen the link to the petitiion page in you signiture, I have signed it and also think that Amiga Inc. is shutting the door on a hole lot of potential users with their little hardware dongle plan. by the way, do you have a larger picture of your avatar, I like it alot, and also think my grandfather would get a kick out of it.

[Seehund]

WarPiper:

Lookee here.

I think colour photography should be banned. It makes manipulation unnecessarily difficult!

-- edit --

BTW, was your grandfather in the Afrikakorps or something?

[Ilwrath]

# rpm -i A.rpm B.rpm C.rpm

Yep...  That'd work.  Or there was a seperate "force" switch, also... (Wasn't it -f?) That'll force install a package, regardless of if it's a right version, has prereq's, etc...

This was a few years ago. AFAIK rpm was the only known one around then.

Yeah...  Though even back then, RPM was a nicer package manager than a lot I've used.  Egah!  I don't want to think about the nightmares the SGI IRIX package manager causes!  I've still never gotten the SGI Freeware CD to cleanly install!  

[Floid]

nOw2 wrote:

So, my question is : is there a linux flavour that processes   the package installation in a efficient way, installing only the common files among the packages instead of copying them all ?

No, install the files by hand from .tar.gz

More seriously, tracking the dependencies to this level of 'granularity' would get insane, and create the corrolary - "I already installed B, why is this file missing?!"

The best way to look at it is to consider KDE+Qt or Gnome+GTK as Windows and Geoworks were atop MS-DOS.  Both 'very large' packages, and, had you the disk space, you could've had both installed at once.  (From that perspective, we've 'advanced' in the sense that you can run Qt apps under Gnome or GTK under KDE, because the apps just link to their desired widget lib and X11 doesn't actually care.)

Now, if you want the whole 'user experience,' you'll have to install one or the other - once - at the cost of a fair bit of disk.  (You think the binaries are bad?  I run FreeBSD, people think I should build from source! )

If you want to save disk space, you'll want to limit yourself to apps that, at worst, link to GTK or Qt (and preferrably only one), without depending on *any* of the Gnome or KDE libs.  (My opinion is that, in practice, there are more 'decent' apps that use GTK sans Gnome than use Qt sans KDE; YMMV.)

Debian is supposedly good about following dependency trees, but they made the mistake of putting.. dselect, is it?.. at the end of the installer script, and presumably dselect is dumber than actual apt.  Maybe.  There might also be options (a-la BSD Ports make directives) to say 'don't install 20MB of .ps documentation with this one;' you'll have to ask someone familiar with your distro's idea of packaging.

I'd guess 20GB is now the baseline 'enough' to install all of an X11 server du jour, Mozilla, Gnome, KDE, and whatever passes for other reasonable software while still leaving most of the disk free for some data.  [My FreeBSD install, with two versions of Phoenix/Firefox, Linux and BSD builds of Java, GTK and Qt but none of the 'big' desktop environment libs themselves, and assorted other cruft, is probably pushing 7GB now, but I haven't needed to install something in an age.]

[Tomas]

I personally have zero problems with debian and its apt-get... I find apt-get much better than redhat's sucky RPM system..
I have not yet had any depedencies issue on debian.

There are some badly made debian packages out there, but all official ones should work fine..