[Rule-list] Red Hat No Longer Supports 486

[Colin Mattoon]

On Mon, 28 Oct 2002 16:53 +0000 (GMT Standard Time)
lproven at cix.co.uk (Liam Proven) wrote:<and I switched the order of
things around>

Just some of my layman's opinions:

> Why RPM?
> Why SysV init?

In my opinion, these two items provide the only reason for doing
anything to Slackware. Slackware is already a mature, full featured,
modern distribution that can be used for essentially any purpose Linux
can be used for. In addition, Slackware already installs on the
hardware that Red Hat won't work with -- which was, I presume, the
original purpose of the RULE project.

So why not just use Slackware as is? For many people, that's the
answer. But for millions of other people, the difficulty of
administering a Slackware workstation that needs to keep pace with Red
Hat, the industry leader, is too much of a project, without some help.
You cannot install binaries intended for Red Hat without supporting
RPM (which Slackware does, but only to a limited degree). You can't
manage RPMs -- in a Red Hat like manner -- without performing
dependancy checking -- and Slackware needs help in that area. Finally,
a lot of binaries intended for Red Hat won't run without adding some
SysV scripts to Slackware's "BSD style" initialization scheme. This
can be done manually, but it is difficult for inexperienced users.
 
> > One reason is I believe Slackware is more viable is that, unlike
> > Debian, Slackware has no package management system in place that
> > performs dependancy checking. 
> 
> That is its greatest weakness, I think.

It is a distribution that has no existing package management system to
get in the way when making modifications to mimic Red Hat's
functionality. In this situation, a strength.
> 
> > However, my fear is that if
> > Debian is selected, APT and RPM will too often compete 
> 
> Why?
> 
Apt, which is really a front end to dpkg, is a full featured package
management system that does many of the same things that RPM does, and
there are many people who believe it is better than RPM. Be that as it
may be, the fact is, that APT and RPM check for different dependancies
and will remove and install packages without regard to the
requirements of the other system...unless you want to fill the hard
drive with duplicate packages.

> -- human nature
> > guarantees that a "Rule-Debian" system will be updated with APT on
> > a regular basis, and RPM dependancies  will be broken just as
> > regularly. 
> 
> I don't understand this.
> 
Apt is at the heart of Debian's "Install once, run for ever," claim. A
Debian system, once installed, never needs to be upgraded in the same
sense that you upgrade a Red Hat, Slackware or SuSE system. You never
perform another installation: you run "apt-get update" followed by
"apt-get upgrade" and then (if there's a new release) "apt-get
dist-upgrade." The machine seeks out a Debian mirror site (as found in
/etc/apt/sources.list) and begins to replace packages as fast as it
can download them from the Internet.

That is the standard (and the only practical) method to keep a Debian
system up-to-date and secure. And when this is done, most of what has
been done to make the system compatible with Red Hat will be broken --
because the base Debian packages you were using an hour ago aren't
there anymore.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. There is no static target to
develop Red Hat compatibility if Debian is used, because even the
stable release is updated regularly. Most Debian systems are installed
from the Internet.  Install Debian stable today and you'll get one set
of packages. Perform an install tomorrow, and you'll likely get some
different, updated, packages. Debian development is therefore,
different than developing for other distributions. It is essential
that Apt be permitted to handle all dependancy checking.

> > The only other "thoughts" that come to mind this morning (I need
> > more coffee), is that AbiWord is smaller than WordPerfect 8.0 and
> > handles XML (and is included with Slackware) 
> 
> From what I've seen - not a lot - it's less complete, has poorer
> general file format support (XML? Who cares?), poorer help &c.
> 
> WP is bigger, slower, semicommercial (who cares?), is old, and is a
> bit ideosyncratic. Works, though, and is a good solid product.
> 

Yes, WP is good. It IS larger and slower than AbiWord, and takes up
many more megabytes of diskspace and RAM, at least it does on the
systems where I have compared the two. A 16 MB system uses a lot of
swap space when WP is loaded. XML is primarily important only when
document exchange is an issue. That's a daily concern for me, and for
millions of people worldwide. WP 8.0 has some license issues that may
get in the way if you try to distribute it. AbiWord doesn't. Law
office throughout the English speaking world (maybe elsewhere -- I
don't know) rely on Word Perfect...and the conclusion? Nobody will be
100% satisfied with any choice made.  
> 
> > -- "ee" is a great text editor to
> > use as a substitute for vi 
> 
> Not seen it. I'll look.
> 
> > -- "xf86config" wnd "SuperProbe" are pretty
> > reliable for X3 based systems 
> 
> xf86config is /horrid./ Usually works, yes, but easy, friendly or
> pretty, no.
> 
> 
Some things have to be given up if you want to install Linux on
machines with ISA motherboards, limited RAM, pre-Pentium processors,
and small hard drives. The only thing about using xf86config that is
difficult, is a lack of clear, concise instruction for inexperienced
users. "Friendly and pretty" is for people who can afford a brand new
Pentium 4 machine. They can use Red Hat 8.0, because they have modern
hardware and machine resources to spare. The person stuck with a 486DX
can't afford three minutes of "pretty" during the install if it means
running a utility that often won't work with ISA cards, crashes the
installation, and takes up desperately needed disk space for the next
3 years.  

> > and Slackware already includes an easy to use ncurses based tool
> > to configure pppd. Pppd can then be configured for demand
> > dialing... 
> 
> Ah, OK. Not seen that either.
> 
It works well.


Later,
Colin Mattoon


_______________________________________________
Rule Project HOME PAGE:  http://www.rule-project.org/rule/
Original Rule Development Site http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/rule/
Original RULE mailing list: Rule-list at nongnu.org, hosted at http://mail.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/rule-list