Re: "Debian" starts with "D" (was Re: Three questions

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <turnbull@example.com>]

The answer to Drago's question about kernels is "kernel-package".  Get
it, install it, use it.  It is without question the best thing unique
(still, AFAIK) to Debian.[1] It is a pity that they haven't
generalized it to "generic-package", but I can see their point.

Continuing in <RANT> mode....

My biggest day-to-day irritation with Debian is Scott's complaint:

>>>>> "Simon" == Simon Cozens <simon@example.com> writes:

    Simon> On Wed, Feb 07, 2001 at 01:15:33PM -0800, Scott M. Stone
    Simon> wrote:
    >> My personal thing with Debian is that I *still* can't get the
    >> stupid package manager to do what I want.  Maybe it's just me.
    >> I installed the base system, ran dselect

    Simon> That's your mistake.

    Simon> Use apt or aptitute instead of dselect.

apt helps a lot, if you've got little enough to do to work from the
command line; last I tried aptitude (3 months ago?) it was less useful
than dselect (although that's probably because I've gotten to the
point where my private collection of .debs for reinstalling
--force-depends and/or locally rebuilt with sane dependencies has
reached about a dozen).  If you're lucky, some of the meta-packages
will do pretty much what you want.

But apt will not override certain broken dependencies, no matter what
you tell it, AFAIK.  For that, you have to do what I do and use dpkg
on a private stash of .debs.

My philosophical problems with Debian are

(1) No DWISNWIM (do what I say, not what I mean) mode in any of the
high level tools.  I started with Debian because dpkg has DWISNWIM
mode; back then dpkg _was_ "high-level.  But it isn't any more.  This
lack stems from ...

(2) Overweening arrogance among the senior developers, plus Perlish
incompetence that makes even Simon blush and think about switching to
python (OK, I exaggerate, Emacs Lisp).  None of them are Uli Drepper,
but they all put on the same airs.  Fortunately most of them do
respect the "thou shalt not patch the upstream tree unless you
absolutely must" commandment.

Unfortunately they generally suffer from "Linux syndrome".  Ie,
documents written to describe existing Linux practice have "Linux"
removed from the title, and are promulgated as "standards".  (Eg,
FHS.)  These are then used as an excuse to patch the upstream tree for
policy reasons, as are the Meditations of the Prophet Ulrich on the
proper interpretation of the POSIXen 1 and 2, and Unix9899000102....

I don't care what you do to XMMS (or anything that features "skins" or
"themes"), but _puh-leeze_ do not fraginclude my CVS---not all of the
boxen I CVS from are Debian or even Linux.

The excessive Debian standards also tend to slow release of the
packages maintained by conscientious people, who do it right just
'cause doggoneit, you do it right or you don't do it.  Hurray for
them!  But I wish they release more regularly.

Unfortunately ...

(3) An extremely promiscuous development model results in rapid
release of broken packages in the unstable tree.  They have tools to
check the dependencies; they just don't enforce their use.  This is
(yahari) especially blatant in debian-jp packages, but you see
frequent problems elsewhere.  There is heavy dependence on common
tools like debconf, but these are typically half-broken (I've never
seen Perl 5 segfault outside of a Debian configure script ;-).  Worse,
they regularly overwrite existing files in /etc.  Again, they have
tools, which are regularly polished up, to check for such
misdemeanors, but use is not enforced.  Not to mention that they
generally REQUIRE when RECOMMEND would do, RECOMMEND when SUGGEST
would do, and SUGGEST when no sane person would want the additional
cruft -- as a substitute for thinking about what's needed (on the
package maintainer level) or reworking the basically flat 6500 and
growing package list into a sane, browsable database on the distro
maintainer level.

Note how often I write "tools exist".  That's why Debian is best of
breed for the dedicated hacker (who doesn't compile from scratch, OK
Chris, mea maxima culpa).  But Debian's underlying design, which once
was rather clean and easy to work with, is getting crufted over with
"features" like Debconf and Debhelper that make it easy to _almost_ do
it right in the common cases.  And that's just not the filed where
Debian should want to compete with Red Hat, Turbolinux, or SuSE.

I think there should be a middle ground between Chris and Austin, who
use a pin and a Zippo lighter to create a boot prom out of primordial
sand, and thus boot their BSDs, and the "put the CD-ROM in the drive,
then go to the movies while Linux installs itself, and bitch on
*Lug when your sound card doesn't work" crowd.  Debian should aim at
that, IMHO.  But instead, they're drifting off to the "you don't have
to know about the OS to use your computer end of the spectrum."

Nothing wrong with that, but my next install will almost certainly be
NetBSD.  Of course I'll keep a fewz Debian boxen around, in the same
way that lots of Linux users double boot Windose for the games and
multimedia apps.  ;-)

Footnotes: 
[1]  Yes, the BSDs have their "ports" which are spiritually
equivalent.  The point is that Debian does it in the context of a
"Linux-should-be-just-like-Windows-except-different" distribution.

-- 
University of Tsukuba                Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences       Tel/fax: +81 (298) 53-5091
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What are those straight lines for?  "XEmacs rules."