The Ubuntu Live conference began yesterday in Portland Oregon with Mark Shuttleworth's keynote presentation. Shuttleworth, the Ubuntu project's charismatic leader, discussed a wide variety of topics relating to Canonical's business prospects and the future of the Ubuntu Linux distribution.
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Member since:2006-06-14
Get back to me when it updates Total Commander for you, instead of Microsoft programs only.
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"If you distro refuses to package that app, then what? If they have "higher priority issues" to take care of first, then what? If you have to wait a year for them to package it, while you need it now, then what? What choice do I have other than using Alien or compiling manually?"
I notice you didn't include a launchpad link.
Please point me to the RFC where package management is defined.
No, if you want to stick to that example, that would be like expecting the .fasl files of different implementations to be compatible, and proclaiming lisp doomed when they aren't acknowledged as a problem.
You're refusing to acknowledge that only source compatibility can be guaranteed by the model employed by the GNU/Linux world.
edit: typo.
Edited 2007-07-24 17:31
Member since:2005-11-11
"Get back to me when it updates Total Commander for you, instead of Microsoft programs only."
I don't have Total Commander. But Ragnarok Online, Starcraft, Skype, Daemon Tools, GTK, Gimp, Gtk-Sharp, Firefox, Crimson Editor, ActivePerl, Delphi, Cygwin, they all install correctly.
"Please point me to the RFC where package management is defined."
Of course that RFC will never come if you continue to think that ABI (which is actually more important than package management, as ABI is what makes things compatible) *shouldn't* be standardized. If we are talking about HTTP then the conversation would be like this:
Person A> "Web browser X works with web server H but not web server I. The WWW protocol should be standardized."
Person B> "What a load of crap. Different web servers do things differently. If web browsers work on all web servers then it wouldn't work well on any."
Person A> "But we've already standardized HTML, why not web server protocols?"
Person B> "Show me the RFC for web server protocols then."
Well duh, of course that RFC doesn't exist and will not exist if you keep going in circles.
"You're refusing to acknowledge that only source compatibility can be guaranteed by the model employed by the GNU/Linux world."
No, I'm saying source compatibility isn't enough. Software between distros *should* be both source compatible and binary compatible.
Member since:2007-02-17
If you have to wait a year, I'd suggest you are definately using the wrong distro.
Why don't you simply go for a distribution that is awake, rather than a dead one?
Use a better distribution.
Ubuntu, Debian testing, Fedora, SuSe or even a relatively small but "on the ball" distribution such as PCLinuxOS would be the go.
You obviously don't install many Windows applications then, either.
Windows-think. Only a person stuck inextricably in Windows-think could have a complaint such as this.
Across the FOSS world, applications are compatible via their source code, not via binary executable file compatibility.
In this way, I can run a FOSS GTK application on any x86 box, on a MIPS processor, on a PowerPC, on an old Mac, on an Xbox, on a PS3 with a Cell processor, on an IBM mainframe, on an ARM PDA, on an iPod or an iPhone or even on a Windows x86 box.
I don't rely on a particular set rigid processor architecture and an ancient legacy-problem-ridden binary API.
Ease of installation and portability of package management on Linux beats the socks over anything on Windows.
What is more, if I stick to a policy of "install only from my distribution's repositories", then I am guaranteed to have no malware.
Edited 2007-07-26 06:51
Member since:
2005-11-11
"There is a huge difference, though. On Linux, package management tends to work."
And on Windows it doesn't? I can't even remember the last time that a Windows app refused to install.
"Seriously, this argument crops up time and again, and it makes no sense. Why the hell would you have to convert anything?"
Because I'm using Ubuntu and Epson doesn't provide .DEBs for their scanner drivers?
"If your distro doesn't package something you need, file a bug for heaven's sake!"
If you distro refuses to package that app, then what? If they have "higher priority issues" to take care of first, then what? If you have to wait a year for them to package it, while you need it now, then what? What choice do I have other than using Alien or compiling manually?
"Different distros do things differently. That's the point. Different methods, different standards, different layout. An installer that would work on all of them would not work well on any them."
"Different web servers do things differently. That's the point. A web server that would be compatible with all web browsers would not work well on any of them."
Do you realize what you're saying? The whole point of standards is to make things compatible. Are you telling me that nobody should follow the HTML standard? That nobody should follow the HTTP standard? That nobody should follow the British English standard or the international metrics standard?
"while you're at it, why not hop on to comp.lang.lisp and suggest to replace the parentheses with whitespace?"
Well, what you said in your last paragraph is similar to "different Lisp implementation should use different characters in place of parentheses".
Edited 2007-07-24 16:56