[ltp] Re: X30 linux installation

[Steve Thompson]

--- Richard Neill <rn214@hermes.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> 
> Steve Thompson wrote:
> 
> > In the last couple of months, the only major problems I have
> encountered
> > are (1) satisfying dependencies, or (2) satisfying dependencies. 
> Rarely,
> > I have had to work a little to satisfy dependencies with packages that
> are
> > slightly difficult to find, but eventually google yields its secrets.
> 
> That of course is where a mainstream distro (eg Mandriva, or Ubuntu) 
> helps a lot, since the package manager should be able to resolve them.
> 
> When it comes to compiling, the following are invaluable:
> 
> prevu
> 	automatically build your own Ubuntu backports
> 
> checkinstall
> 	./configure && make && sudo checkinstall
>          This means you never bypass the package manager, and you can
>          always uninstall things again; it also prevents conflicts.
> 
> urpmf  /usr/lib/foo/bar                   (Mandriva)
> apt-file search /usr/lib/foo/bar          (Debian/Ubuntu)
> 
> 	Both help with the same thing:  "I'm trying to compile X from 	
> 	source, but it depends on a library/header file which is not
> 	installed. How do I discover which (if any) of the
> 	distribution's binary packages contains the file I want.
> 
> alien
> 	Converts between RPM <-> DEB. It usually works OK.

It's good that the package managers help you with your source management
requirements, but I've given the topic a fair bit of thought and for my
purposes, the existing package management systems don't quite make the
grade.  It's not that they cannot be used to manage a whole system, but
that they are not standardized; existing schemes are wildly different.

pkgconfig(1) is the best contemporary system for tracking compilation and
installation details, but it should really be integrated with GNU Autoconf
and modified so it can be instructed with system-wide policies in a more
formal way that via environment variables and command-line options.  If it
used a real database to track everything, so much the better. 
Unfortunately it would be necessary for software developers to adopt such
a system voluntarily as a ratified standard.

Today, almost everyone developing for linux uses GNU Make and most will
rely on GNU autoconf, and that's about as far as it goes.  Redhat, Debian
and others have their own package management systems (and limited
interoperability), but they have to seperately modify each package to
their  scheme, which is labour intensive.  Alien is a nice hack, but as
helpful as it may be it is not a permanent solution.

In ten years I suspect that things will be different.  Ten years ago, some
of the major distributions were bringing out their first releases, back in
the the dark, primitive days of linux-1.2.x, and possibly a bit earlier. 
in 2017 the sheer volume of code out there will demand a comprehensive
management solution, and preferrably one that will work on my Thinkpad. 
The sooner a competent standard is acheived, the sooner it can be adopted
by developers.

For my purposes, maintaining my system from the primary distribution sites
 of the various packages manually is the better solution and I am willing
to pay the cost of the time I spend doing it.  But I wish there was an
better way.


Regards,

Steve


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