[Beowulf] A press release

[Jon Aquilina]

im also not sure what support is like in other distros but i commend the
kubuntu volunteers who man that irc channel for support as well as those who
help with development. are there any other distros that provide support like
this?

On 7/2/08, Jon Aquilina <eagles051387 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> one thing must not be forgotten though. in regards to pkging stuff for the
> ubuntu variation once someone like you and me you upload it for someone
> higher up on the chain to check and upload to the servers. so basically
> someone is checking what someone else has packaged.
>
> On 7/2/08, Tim Cutts <tjrc at sanger.ac.uk> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 2 Jul 2008, at 6:06 am, Mark Hahn wrote:
>>
>>  I was hoping for some discussion of concrete issues.  for instance,
>>>>> I have the impression debian uses something other than sysvinit -
>>>>> does that work out well?
>>>>>
>>>>> Debian uses standard sysvinit-style scripts in /etc/init.d, /etc/rc0.d,
>>>> ...
>>>>
>>>
>>> thanks.  I guess I was assuming that mainstream debian was like ubuntu.
>>>
>>
>> It's sort of the other way around.  Remember that Ubuntu is based off a
>> six-monthly snapshot of Debian's testing track, which is why Hardy looks a
>> lot more like the upcoming Debian Lenny than it does like Debian Etch.
>>
>> interesting - I wonder why.  the main difference would be that the rpm
>>> format encodes dependencies...
>>>
>>
>> The difficulty is that many ISVs tend to do a fairly terrible job of
>> packaging their applications as RPM's or DEB's, for example creating init
>> scripts which don't obey the distribution's policies, or making willy-nilly
>> modifications to configuration files all over the place, even in other
>> packages (which in the Debian world is a *big* no-no, that's why many
>> Debian/Ubuntu packages have now moved to the conf.d type of configuration
>> directory, so that other packages can drop in little independent snippets of
>> configuration)
>>
>> I have seen, for example, .deb packages from a Large Company With Which We
>> Are All Familiar which essentially attempted to convert your system into a
>> Red Hat system by moving all your init scripts around and whatnot, so once
>> you'd installed this abomination, you'd totally wrecked the ability of many
>> of the main distro packages to be updated ever again.  Oh, and of course
>> uninstalling the package didn't put anything back the way it had been
>> before.
>>
>> Like you, I tend to use tarballs if they are available, and if I want to
>> turn them into packages I do it myself, and make sure they are policy
>> compliant for the distro.
>>
>> So this, while not a statement in favour of either flavour of distro, is
>> definitely a warning to be very wary of what packages that have come from
>> sources other than the distro itself might do (which of course, you'd be
>> wary of anyway for security reasons).
>>
>> Tim
>>
>>
>> --
>> The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute is operated by Genome ResearchLimited,
>> a charity registered in England with number 1021457 and acompany registered
>> in England with number 2742969, whose registeredoffice is 215 Euston Road,
>> London, NW1 2BE._______________________________________________
>> Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf at beowulf.org
>> To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit
>> http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Jonathan Aquilina




-- 
Jonathan Aquilina
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.beowulf.org/pipermail/beowulf/attachments/20080702/56c63de1/attachment.html>