[lug] new distro

[David Morris]

On Mon, Oct 07, 2002 at 11:58:33AM -0600, Timothy C. Klein wrote:
> * Peter Hutnick (peter-lists at hutnick.com) wrote:
> > Finally, apt: Okay, it is pretty good.  But I don't believe that it is
> > substantively better than RPM*.  If anything I think that the Debian
> > package maintainers do a better job . . . but that just takes us full
> > circle to the "Broken"/"Stale" debate.  IOW, the selection of packages is
> > really good, and all the dependency stuff works pretty well (not as well
> > as the Debinistas would have you believe) but you are stuck with a choice
> > between a system that is (generally) less tested/stable than, say, the
> > current Red Hat release, or one that is rock-solid, and roughly up to
> > speed with the previous Red Hat /major/ rev, or older.  Not much of a
> > choice IMO.
> 
> You are somehwat right to say that the Debian package maintainers do a
> better job.  They certainly do.  And that, really, is the crux of the
> issue.  All the technology in the world is useless if there is not
> thoughtfull human support and use behind it.  The dependency is actually
> significantly better in apt vs rpm, as well, which rpm has to address
> one day if it really wants to seriously improve.

You have a good point there that should be noted:  Lazy
programmers are the source of many problems from bugs to
dependancy hell.  Debian offers more strict guidelines which
means the lazy programmers don't usually become package
maintainers.

--David