[wplug] SLES 9.0 questions
Michael A. Smith
michael at smith-li.com
Mon Oct 25 15:44:33 EDT 2004
I guess what you're talking about is package management, the art of
getting the latest/safest/best software on your linux box without
breaking it.
Package management is the Holy Grail of open source BSD and Linux, and
in my opinion is a sound explanation why people switch to the so-called
"harder" distributions, such as Gentoo, Debian, or one of the BSDs.
I never much liked RPM'd distributions, because finding RPMs and making
sure they were up-to-date was too much trouble, especially when you take
dependencies into account.
The two best distributions for their package management are probably
Gentoo (source based), and Debian (binary). Gentoo is one of those
distributions that scares people away because of its supposedly long
learning curve, and occasionally, some of its users, but I can tell you
that its package management is second to none. Considering the level of
control that you can, but don't have to, assert, Gentoo is a very hard
distro to switch away from once you've gotten used to it. I've also
heard of Portage, Gentoo's package management system, on OS X, Cygwin,
and OpenBSD.
Debian's apt-get package management is nice, although heavier on the
dependencies than Gentoo, but being a binary distribution means install
times are shorter, anyway. Unlike Gentoo, Debian has lots and lots of
offshoot distributions, like Ubuntu and Knoppix, which differ from
Debian in some ways, but use the same package management tools, if I
recall correctly. Debian's package management system is called APT.
In fact, SuSE has even gotten on the APT boat now, which is really nice
if you're using SuSE and don't want to change distros:
http://linux01.gwdg.de/apt4rpm/home.html
Hope it helps,
Michael A. Smith
Pecoraro, Chris wrote:
>Hello all,
>
>I'm a linux newbie, so forgive my silly questions. We have SLES 9.0 on opteron dual 246 (SMP) (750 gig ATA, 8 gig ram) without the maintenance, and it's becoming almost impossible to keep up with the latest rpms. Can I really maintain this server without a YAST or subscription, or am I kidding myself. I can't even install Gimp or Firefox because I'm already missing newer libs!
>
>Thanks in advance guys/girls
>
>Chris Pecoraro
>Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh
>
>CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE. This e-mail and attachments (if any) are the sole property of Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh and may contain information that is confidential, proprietary, privileged or otherwise prohibited by law from disclosure or re-disclosure. This information is intended solely for the individual(s) or entity(ies) to whom this e-mail or attachments are addressed. If you have received this e-mail in error, you are prohibited from using, copying, saving or disclosing this information to anyone else. Please destroy the message and any attachments immediately and notify the sender by return e-mail. Thank you.
>
>
>
>CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE. This e-mail and attachments (if any) are the sole property of Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh and may contain information that is confidential, proprietary, privileged or otherwise prohibited by law from disclosure or re-disclosure. This information is intended solely for the individual(s) or entity(ies) to whom this e-mail or attachments are addressed. If you have received this e-mail in error, you are prohibited from using, copying, saving or disclosing this information to anyone else. Please destroy the message and any attachments immediately and notify the sender by return e-mail. Thank you.
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>wplug mailing list
>wplug at wplug.org
>http://www.wplug.org/mailman/listinfo/wplug
>
>
More information about the wplug
mailing list