Re: tlug: libc or glibc,easy install

[Scott Stone <sstone@example.com>]

On Tue, 13 Oct 1998, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

> Turbopkg vs dselect: user interface hell.  They are both so clumsy I
> could cry (sorry, Scott).  When you're dealing with hundreds (in
> Debian's case, over 1500) of packages, flat menus of all of them just
> suck.  Even if movement by category or outlining capabilities are
> provided.  dselect gives more kinds of information in more detail
> about each package.

you try writing one :)

Anyway, the new version has some new hotkeys to make things easier - 'U'
will select all 'upgrades', and 'N' will select 'upgrades + new packages
that you never installed in the first place'.  'C' will clear the
selection.   You can collapse/expand the tree to view only categories with
F2, and keyword search with ctrl-S (X version only) or F4.  F3 (or ctrl-i
in the X version) provides package info, including dependencies.  It could
probably provide more info, however, which I plan to add later.

> 
> Both make bad decisions about when to insist on dependencies (early
> versions of dselect had to be forcibly killed sometimes; this is why
> Craig hated dselect), but rarely in both cases.  (This is really a
> function of the package database, not the programs.  The Debian bug
> where it would get wedged was a real bug, of course.)

This is why turbopkg now has an option (in the Options menu) to turn off
dependency enforcement, if that's what you want.

> 
> If you make a mistake in creating a custom combo, turbopkg doesn't let
> you go back to your previous list, you have to go back to the default
> state and start all over.  This is a big win for dselect, although
> this functionality is promised for turbopkg.  Both present you with
> long lists of packages although Debian's grouping is finer and more
> mature.  OTOH TL's grouping is somewhat more topical.
> 

Debian is also a more mature distribution.  TL just celebrated its first
birthday in September.

> Turbopkg has a lot of promise, especially in the xturbopkg interface.
> dselect is not going to be maintained, Debian is developing a new
> package management interface.  Who knows where that will go.
> Turbopkg, on the other hand, is actively in development, and Scott is
> working hard to improve functionality.
> 
> If you have a lot of space (for my usage pattern, it's been hard to
> fit a functional TL system into 650 MB; the same functionality easily
> fits into 450 MB with Debian) TL does offer the convenience of
> pre-selected system lists, which you can just load and install.  Good
> deal, not available with Debian at all as far as I know.
> 
> Turbodesk.  I've learned to live with it.  I don't use any of its
> special tools.  I don't miss it when I go back to a vanilla fvwm2.

...which is also included with TL for people like Steve :) ...

> And Turbodesk has a big potential minus:  it really can't be used on
> less than a 16bpp display.  A lot of its gadgets tend to puke and die
> if they can't allocate PinkPantyPolkadot for their background color.
> Your favorite backdrop of Lake Hakone in fall will come up with yellow
> water because it can't allocate an appropriate blue.[1]  Most personal
> workstations this doesn't matter these days, but you can't use it on
> mono Sparcs (no, there isn't a Sparc version of TL yet; surprise! your
> window manager can run on a different host, and I did just that with
> fvwm2 over RHL 4.2 on the Sparc, I hate fvwm95.  Hate, hate!) or in a
> lab full of cheap old PC workstations.  The docs suck (not for the
> truly Turbo part, but for the WatchYourStep window manager which is
> the centerpiece of TurboDesk).

I'm still waiting for Afterstep 1.5 to be fully released.  Hopefully it'll
be an improvement.  As for 8bpp displays, well, that's why I ship 5 other
window managers with TL...

... and anyone who's foolish enough to load a photograph into the
background of an 8bpp X display deserves what they get :) -- there's many
ways even to restrict the colormap usage of the photo.  But that's not the
point - no matter what wm you use, that photo's going to eat a lot of
colormap.

> 
> Turbodesk is pretty, and does have some tools that would be useful in
> many circumstances that I don't happen to match.  (For example, my TL
> machine is a notebook, so rather than fiddle with the modem---useless
> from about 2 hours before telehodai starts, anyway---I sneaker it in
> to school and hook it up to the LAN.  So the ppp related tools are
> irrelevant.)
> 
> The other tools are excellent, but I don't use them once the install
> is over.  Debian's install is equally easy in my experience.  Except
> that Debian requires you to make about 7 floppies plus a boot floppy.
> Which is actually an advantage IMO, because in the rare case that
> something goes wrong with a TL install, you're stuck.  You usually do
> not have a usable Linux system.  

I've rearranged the install to put the LILO install right after the
package inst, so if something barfs in the config section, you can still
boot the system and try again.

> You don't even have a boot/root disk.

oh, you can make them if you want to.

> With Debian, you usually do, and you can usually find a way to get the
> upgrade you need from there to here.  If you don't like solving that
> kind of puzzle, but would prefer to get tech support from Scott, then
> the 7 floppies are a big minus.
> 
> One thing that Debian has that's nice is a menuing standard.
> Uninstalled packages do not end up on your menus; installed ones do go 
> there.  The same thing is true for documentation, especially Info
> documentation.
> 

well, the pulldown menus in AfterStep don't display things that aren't
installed.  Unfortunately, Wharf does.  XTurboAppMgr, which was scheduled
to debut in 3.0 (but might not, unfortunately), also hides uninstalled
packages and uses the wmconfig standard for descriptions/groupings/etc.
And it's windowmanager-independent.

>     Scott> made.  Debian gives you arguably more goodies if you go
>     Scott> through all the optional packages in the Debian archives,
> 
> Hands down Debian wins on number of distribution packages.  Probably
> not if you are willing to risk the RedHat contrib archives.
> 

even Redhat doesn't want to touch those with the ol 'support pole', as far
as I can tell.  There are some really poorly-made RPM packages in there.

>     Scott> and it has what Steve Turnbull likes to call "fine grained
>     Scott> dependencies" if you're really concerned about conserving
>     Scott> disk space, which many people are.  Personally, I like TL
> 
> There are some things that you don't want lying around on some
> systems, either.  But that's not an issue on a personal workstation
> not providing Internet servers.
> 
>     Scott> better (duh!), but there's definitely room for all the
>     Scott> distributions to coexist, since they each have their own
>     Scott> uniquities that different people will like.  My 2 cents, at
>     Scott> least.
> 
> 
> Footnotes: 
> [1]  Be quiet, X gurus.  I'm making a point here.
> 
> -- 
> University of Tsukuba                Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
> Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences        Tel/fax: +1 (298) 53-5091
> 

--------------------------------------------------
Scott M. Stone <sstone@example.com, sstone@example.com>
               <sstone@example.com>
Head of TurboLinux Development/Systems Administrator
Pacific HiTech, Inc (USA) / Pacific HiTech, KK (Japan)
http://www.pht.com		http://armadillo.pht.co.jp
http://www.pht.co.jp	        http://www.turbolinux.com


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