On 12/18/05, Peter wrote: > On Sat, 17 Dec 2005, Byron A Jeff wrote: > > The problem with Slackware is that managing any software that isn't a Slackware > > package isn't easy. I've in fact switched virtually all of my machines from > > Slackware to one Debian variant or another precisely because of package management. > > I beg to disagree. I was in 'dependency hell' with Linux exactly once, > and that was with Debian. I have previously used Slackware, Suse, Red > Hat, and several flavors of *BSD, and am currently on a hevily modified > Debian base (at least my workstation is). The only time I got bitten was > with Debian. > > I think that you can get caught in dependency hell with any > distribution. The only one that can be untangled relatively easily is > the .tar.gz package model aided by a base of static-compiled essential > binaries. > I think the dependency hell problem exists in the major Linux versions. And I agree with Peter that Debian (I was using Ubuntu for more than half a year) is paticularly strange. To remove some obscure packages I need to remove some other packages as well. Debian is good to have a large pool of packages but somewhat the dependency problem is more severe. I think it would be nice to go back to the carbon-copy install days (DOS?) now that harddisk is bigger and cheaper. It is said that carbon-copy method will be the preferred method of deploying software in the Windows world once .Net is really kicking in. The problem with Slackware for me is actually that it is no longer a popular distribution. As I need to search for solutions of various problems I'd better stick to popular distributions and normally the latest distributions. That is why I chose Ubuntu and now choose FC4. Regards, Xiaofan -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist