Distribution that is (manually) upgrade-friendly?
 

Greetings!


I have been using SuSE Linux since version 5.2 now and I have almost always been very content with it. However I am starting to get a little uncomfortable with how the yast/rpm system works. For example when a program I want to compile needs new libraries like GTK and so on, I have to uninstall the current version (which works usually by ignoring the dependencies) and then compile and install the new version. However sometimes it can get very troublesome because yast wants to reinstall the old version every time I install something completely different from the CDs. If I don't unselect this, then I have multiple versions of these libraries in my system which can lead to unexpected trouble and can be a lot of work to resolve again.

Because of this I have never even attempted to update major system components like gcc or glibc. I fear this would render my whole system useless.

Now I am thinking of trying a different distribution which supplies me with all I need at the initial install but will be easier to upgrade. Can you people give me any advice on which distribution will possibly fit my needs? I am thinking of debian but I don't know how the apt-get (spelling?) system works. Is it more update-friendly? Or which other distributions are out there? I guess RedHat will be quite like SuSE, so that's probably not what I want... how about Slackware? Mandrake? Etc? :D


Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

Well, any distro that thinks it is capable of
keeping track of dependencies for you is
in one way or the other going to lead you
to a similar situation. apt-get or emerge may
be easier handling than RPM, but you'll
probably end up downloading way more
stuff than you intended to get. I personally
am more than happy to keep my Slack-
system in tune manually after the base-
installation.

That said I have to add that I for instance
haven't (and won't any time soon) installed
gnome2, depriving myself of the latest version
of Gimp for instance, because I found that for
GTK2 I'd need Perl >= 5.8 which breaks
dvdrip :} But thanks goodness for checkinstall,
the roll-backs are always easy ;)



Cheers,
Tink

Slackware is easy if you stick with the tgz packages to install with, using pkgtools or installpkg, etc.

Some even use www.swaret.com to keep up to date with Slackware.

Thank you both for the quick replies!

*laughs* Yes, these are the problems I am talking about. ;)

Since both of you suggested Slackware, I guess I am going to read up about how this distribution works and maybe give it a try!

Thanks a lot again for the feedback!

**COUGH** gentoo.org **COUGH**

acid_kewpie, thanks for that suggestion! I read the philosophy behind gentoo on the website and already like it. It seems like exactly what I am looking for! It seems I have a lot of downloading to do! :D

Ah and you need to do something about that cough of yours. :-|

Looks like any other distro that thinks it can think for
you to me ;)

That system, btw, is basically copied from the BSD's ;)


Cheers,
Tink

Woot!!


Thanks a lot for suggesting gentoo to me, acid_kewpie!

I finally found the time to install and configure it (stage 1 ;)). Not only did it work without any problems but the performance boost is just awesome!


Thanks forever! :D