Re: [linux-audio-dev] Choosing a distribution

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Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] Choosing a distribution
From: Eric Dantan Rzewnicki (eric_AT_zhevny.com)
Date: Mon Mar 04 2002 - 02:17:02 EET


I am in the process of switching from Mandrake 7.0 to debian testing at
home and from RH6.x to debian stable at work. I agree with all that has
been said by others about the benefits of debian package management and
the alternatives system.

I would add that with decent network connectivity (ie DSL or better), a
decently fast mirror of the archives (ftp://techweb.rfa.org/debian if
your near the East Coast) and just two floppies (rescue and root from
the Compact install set) Debian can be incredibly easy to install. The
rescue disk provides a kernel to boot from and the root disk provides a
file system image. Everything else can be retrieved via ftp from a
mirror. Of course this would be a drag over dialup, but with DSL it's
fairly managable and with the mirror at work over the LAN it's very
nice.

I like the kernel management scheme too. make-kpkg builds a .deb package
of the kernel and modules. When installed the package does its best to
take care of configuring and running LILO for you. If things don't work
out, you still have the chance to do it yourself. I've had good success
with this at work when doing a fresh install. At home where I'm keeping
the old Mandrake install in place while working on the debian install on
a seperate disk things have been a little less easy, but still
managable.

On the LAU list earlier today I posted my attempt at updating the
Low-Latency-mini-HOWTO. I added some debian specific instructions for
compiling the kernel.

Hope that helps,
Eric Rz.

Michael J McGonagle wrote:
>
> Hello all,
>
> I am currently in the throws of serious hair loss due to fists clenching
> and tugging all as a result from installing software...
>
> Anyway, my problem that I have is that I just don't like RPM. I admit
> that I don't know very much about it, but I would think that anyone
> should be able to follow installation instructions (and yes I can), and
> yet things just don't seem to be a smooth as possible. One of the
> roadblocks seems to be cause by package dependacies and RPM not being
> able to identify what additional packages it needs.
>
> So, I have been considereing changing from using Mandrake (currently
> using 8.0) to using Debian. Does anyone have a success/horror stories
> from using Debian? How does their package installation utility compare
> to RPM?
>
> The software that I want to be using are Java (jdk1.4), jikes, sfront,
> lilypond, gcj/gcc, the intel compiler, and various other sound
> utilities. I eventually will add a Midi interface, but that has to wait.
>
> Thanks for any and all suggestion, stories, and comments,
>
> Mike


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