I like Ubuntu

[Henry Lenzi]

On 4/19/07, Chris <racerx at makeworld.com> wrote:
> Henry Lenzi wrote:
> > I find nothing brilliant in Debian's package management. It's heavily
> > dependent upon human intervention and just adds a layer of complexity
> > on top of a problem that was *already solved* in the Unix world, by
> > using Make files. Do they have a better backtracking algorithm then
> > Make? No.
>
> I don't understand this at all.

It's quite obvious you don't.

> Assuming that Ubuntu's package
> management is nearly the same as Debian's (by means of apt-get etc.)
> then how do you figure it's heavily dependent on human intervention?
>

Have you ever seen the process whereby Debian (and I keep saying
Debian because Ubuntu just piggybacks on the Debian developers)
releases packages?

Their package management system is supposed to be about handling
dependencies automatically. Well, I'm not sure you've quite noticed
this, that FreeBSD (and the other BSDs) *also* handle dependencies
automatically. How? Because of the Magic Makefiles and its
backtracking algorithm! Well, funny, huh. No need to reinvent the
wheel, as 3 BSD Unixes demonstrate daily.

>
> > Debian's package management is the number one cause that distro just
> > got slower and slower in their release cycle.
>

> Interesting - so, the semi annual (of course this means 2 times a year)
> release of say Ubuntu isn't in line with say, OpenBSD or even FreeBSD
> (when they manage to push our 2 releases in a year).

I said Debian and you said Ubuntu. My point was that the packaging
system they have impinges an extra work load on their "developers"
(there aren't really developers in Debian, only packagers. Only one or
two develop system-level software, unlike in the BSDs).
Fine. Ubuntu release sin a 6 months cycle. That is the reason they
created Ubuntu, because Debian couldn't handle it. Notice that Ubuntu
has full time developers on their payroll, *and* they piggyback on
Debian. My point being that part of the blame lies in the technology
which, in fact, is an opinion seldom heard. A funny thing that the guy
who actually invented dpkg doesn't really use it anymore...
Here's what you do: plot a graphic of the growth of number of packages
in Debian, and then observe how that relates to their release cycle.
You'll notice that the more packages they have, the more they stall.

>
> Base on what you have stated - you either used a very old version of
> Debian or a very old version of Ubuntu. Then again, there is always the
> notion that you may not have used any of the above and are just talking
> out your keister ;)
>
> > Henry Lenzi

Yes I have, I used Debian for over 5 years. I much prefer FreeBSD
nowadays. Anyways, I'll not have an argument with you. I care nothing
about Ubuntu or Debian or your opinons on whether I've used Debian or
not. That is what I think. I'll just leave it at that. You think
Ubuntu is great, good for you.

Henry Lenzi