wrote:
> I mean, with any DEB-based distribution when you install a package it
> will (1) use sane defaults, or (2) ask just enough questions. This
> results in packages that always work when installed.
Sophisticated package management can be a very nice convenience, but many
people presume that having all this comes for free. There is a cost
associated with getting all your packages to just come together like that.
1) Often times, the package may not match the vanilla documentation that
is available for that package, making it a little more difficult to use,
since you have to keep in mind the local tweaks that were made.
2) Doing this modification requires a good deal of effort, so you end up
with version lag. This is especially pronounced on Debian.
3) The benefits you list above come as the result of careful packaging,
not really as an innate feature of a package system. The package system
provides for this, but doesn't actually do this for you. When dealing with
distributions that try to stay more up-to-date with the latest package
versions, you see more mistakes and less stability.
4) It's also not necessary to have such a system in order to get the same
level of "it just works" functionality. Actually, there is an
anti-movement (in Slackware) that avoid explicit dependency restriction in
the packaging system by default (though you can use programs that will do
it for you), which enables you to track updates and make in place changes
with less overhead. The benefits of such a system are that making any
changes to updates to the system can usually be done with minimal hassle,
and you have greater flexibility and simpler administration, but the cost
is a manual or mental overhead in dealing with dependencies (whether this
is high or low depends on the software you're working with in particular).
In short, I am not arguing that these are terrible systems and that
everyone should use Slackware's basic tools (many Slackware users use an
apt-get like equivalent), but we should be aware of the costs associated
with the benefits that a fairly complex system like Debian's provides.
Fortunately, in the Linux world, there is choice in whether you want to
manage things a la Slackware, or a la Debian, and there are multiple
distributions based around each; it's just good to know what you get and
what it costs to use each.
Aaron W. Hsu
--
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its
victims may be the most oppressive. -- C. S. Lewis
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