OT: What's the deal with Ubuntu?

[John Summerfied]

Les Mikesell wrote:
> On Mon, 2005-05-23 at 07:33, John Summerfied wrote:
> 
>>>Ubuntu started with debian packages - I'd argue that Fedora is a
>>>better starting point.
>>
>>Debian beats Fedora here. There are 13,000 or so packages already built 
>>for Debian.
> 
> 
> Maybe 'beats' in a different context. The discussion was about picking
> a set for the first CD that would be a useful install for a lot of
> users or at least get it down to where you would only need to use

Exactly what the Ubuntu folk have done. From Debian.

> yum/apt/up2date to pull another program or two from the repositories.
> Having more packages may not help with this.
> 
> If you don't like sendmail & postfix, then maybe exim is to your taste? 
> 
>>Or even zmailer?.
>>
>>Want a light-weight desktop? fvwm is there. Dillo for a featherweight 
>>browser. links (the real one), w3m....
> 
> 
> Most of the same stuff is rpm-packaged in third-party repositiories.

In Debian (and Ubuntu) it's in a section of the master, and so it's all 
compatible.

Unlike the third-party repos for FC which I hear are mutually incompatible.

There are third-party repos for Debian, I've used them, and they have 
similar problems as those for FC have.

> 
> 
>>>Moving, not removing.  The idea is to re-arrange things so most
>>>installs only need one CD, but all the other packages are still
>>>available.  Rather than argue over what should be on that one
>>
>>Debian does this already, supporting my contention Debian's a better 
>>base the Fedora Core.
> 
> 
> If you can figure out the Debian release policy (or lack thereof) and
> find the versions you actually want to run...  Ubuntu appears to be
> the first ray of hope for this.

Debian's release policy is clear and simple. When it's ready on all 
supported platforms, it's released.

The fact they only accomplish this every few years, a lot of them think 
is not a problem. Perhaps, with groups such as Ubuntu and Mepis it's 
less a problem than it was: they take what's there, apply a coat of 
polish and hey, here's a new release of _Our_ Linux.

> 
> 
>>As one who's been maintaining RHL since 3.0.3 and Debian since the death 
>>of RHL was announced, I will assert I regard Debian's package-management 
>>tools are better.
>>
>>It's not dpkg vs rpm - they provide roughly equivalent functionality, 
>>but Debian's apt-get vs yum and up2date.
> 
> 
> Having failed several times to get dpkg to install a working system,
> I have to disagree (but I haven't tried recently).
> 
> 
>>Anything I can do with yum or up2date I can also do with apt-get, but 
>>apt-get does more that I find useful.
> 
> 
> Can you be more specific?  Is there something missing from the
> apt-for-rpm port that seems to do approximately the same as yum?

I've not used apt-for-rpm; I've not noticed that it's a standard 
supported part of FC3 which I'm using.

On Debian (and derivatives) apt-get
can install built requirements for a nominated package
is _the_ standard way to upgrade from one release to the next
can download (and build) a nominated package

A supplementary package, apt-cache is pretty handy too. If you want to 
find what ecommerce packages are available from the chosen repositories:
apt-cache search commerce




-- 

Cheers
John

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