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Old 10-26-2005, 07:17 PM   #16
tkedwards
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Quote:
I asked this earlier. cs- you mentioned that XMMS uses a package that something else would also require. Thats totally fine. I understand that. Why cant the installation mechanism just ask the user what he/she wants to do when it encounters this situation. If a certain dependency package that is being shipped with the main program is already installed - check to see what version it is and make a decision whether to uninstall the current version and install the newer one, or leave the current version because it is the more up-to-date version.
What you've just described is basically how Linux package management works. Programs are collected together into distributions (or software repositories - there really is no difference) and the packagemanagement system handles the package dependencies. It doesn't even need to ask the user confusing questions like 'should I upgrade this dependency?' it can just do it all automatically.


Quote:
I need a server based distribution because of the web programming that I'll be doing.

I dont think you guys understand what I'm saying.
I don't think that you understand that what your describing is what package management (yum, urpmi, apt etc.) already does. Your problem is you can't access the net on your Linux box at home, not anything to do with the way programs are packaged. You say you want a server based distribution but you want to play mp3s on it? Any of the more desktop-friendly distros like Suse, Mandriva or Ubuntu are just as good for web programming - they have all the tools you need (in fact more than RHEL/Centos because there's more packages available). AFAIK if you want multimedia stuff on Centos you'll have to get the packages from the repositories for Fedora, if you can't use yum from your machine at work then just download the packages from the repository mirror site - as I said they are just http or ftp sites.

http://www.fedorafaq.org/#mp3
 
Old 10-26-2005, 08:38 PM   #17
gilbertt2
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Yeah RPM hell. I'm still there. There have been times where having to find libraries and install stuff has been really interesting. There have been, and continue to be, times where it has been a verrry annoying experience. I think you can admit to the latter and still be someone who really likes Linux. To say its annoying doesn't just make you a 'Windows person' who doesn't get the quasi-mystical way of Linux. It makes you someone that wants stuff to 'just work' so that you can do other things. Which is fine.

The best thing about Linux though is that you can step out of the sandbox and really get to grips with the OS if you want to.I'm a newbie and I mostly enjoy it. But I don't blame anyone for getting a bit annoyed with it sometimes. Most people don't want to know about PADO packets, or worry about Jolie vs Rockridge file extensions, or whatever. Thats why I still use Windows sometimes, (usually for the multimedia stuff, though I'm gonna try and figure out xine again).

The online package managers are great for making life a bit easier, and so are the forums. And I know that there is all this bad politics with codecs and patents and stuff. But there have been times where I've thought ' All I wanted to do was watch that movie'. I still think Linux is better than Windows though.

Thats my ramble over with. Incidentally I've got a minor problem with the synaptic package manager for suse, but I'll post that later
 
Old 10-27-2005, 03:15 AM   #18
imsomehalf
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cs-cam and Dtsazza,

Your right in what your saying. Cs-cam - you dont do much to try to keep people on Linux - are you a Microsoft operative? :-)

The problem with the yum thing is that I actually have to download all the libraries somehow. I havent seen any sites that allow me to "click here for all stable red hat el 4.1 or CentOS 4.1 libraries". Downloading them all individually could take a lifetime surely?!

Dtsazza - We've already been over your first point. I know libraries are used by different apps. I never questioned that. Its just not a very user friendly approach for people without internet connections - never mind broadband. It pains me to think of having to download all these libraries over dial up!!
 
Old 10-27-2005, 03:25 AM   #19
imsomehalf
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tkedwards,
I know that the package managers can download and look after the dependencies for you - but it still doesnt get away from the fact that dependencies can be included in a new app.

Taking a point from earlier - Yes - people with the dependencies dont want to have to download the same libraries over again - and thats fine. Surely a second link on an applications download page could point to the same link - but with all the dependencies?! It a gis-illion times easier that way.

If it was that way -

1) I'd be playing my mp3's/Divx/DVD's/wma/wmv etc files already
2) I wouldnt be here complaining to all you guys about it.
3) I'd be finding out about other things that I could ask you questions about.
4) You's would be happy
5) I'd be happy


See?
 
Old 10-27-2005, 04:02 AM   #20
reddazz
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Personally I don't really see what the fuss is about. The problem here is that you don't have a net connection and if you did all would be well and you wouldn't be complaining. If you don't have a net connection, instead of using distros with crippled multimedia apps like RHEL and CentOS, get a distro that has all the apps and libs on their installation media e.g. Mandriva fits on one DVD but comes with multimedia bundled and all you have to do is add a few codecs. I come from Zimabawe where most people don't have a net connection, but still people use Linux successfully because they purchase distros that have everything they need on the installation media.

The system of shared libraries has been proven to work and will not be changed in anyway just because certain people don't have a net connection (after all Linux was built through cooperation on the net). This system is used in all Unix Oses, so is not just a Linux thing. The OpenSource world has some of the brightest brains and if this system was flawed, they would have fixed it already.

Also use the search facility because this issue of shared libraries has been discussed before and you can find out other peoples responses.
 
Old 10-27-2005, 04:17 AM   #21
imsomehalf
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reddazz,

Did you read the previous posts? It seems you didnt.


I have never stated any problem with the fact that Linux uses shared libraries. Its the perfect Object Oriented approach. I never questioned it. Its perfectly fine. And I never asked anyone to change it either.

At this stage the only DVD writer that I have is on the computer at home - with CentOs on it. Downloading Mandriva would pose a problem in that I dont have a DVD writer at work. I aint gonna buy the DVD from Mandriva. I have CentOs. I want to Keep CentOS.

We are pretty much debating the fact of dependency distribution with the applications at this stage. Everyone doesnt want it. I do - and they are kindly trying to make me see sense. :-)
 
Old 10-27-2005, 04:19 AM   #22
tkedwards
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Quote:
Surely a second link on an applications download page could point to the same link - but with all the dependencies?! It a gis-illion times easier that way.
In Linux applications aren't distributed this way. Most projects only release source code, and those that do release packages usually only have them for one distro. What you're asking for can't be easily done because programs have to be packaged for each distro. If it were possible to just produce one package that took account of all the differences between all the different distros and all their different versions then you could have what you're asking for - but there are major technical hurdles to overcome.

Quote:
1) I'd be playing my mp3's/Divx/DVD's/wma/wmv etc files already
2) I wouldnt be here complaining to all you guys about it.
3) I'd be finding out about other things that I could ask you questions about.
4) You's would be happy
5) I'd be happy
I think I've pointed out the solution to your problems in both my last 2 posts - just goto the mirror site in your web browser or FTP client at work and download all the packages you need, or just get the entire repository. If you were using Mandriva for example you could download the 3CDs off the Mandriva site then download the PLF repository from a mirror site. Its only an extra CD's worth - hardly a problem if you've already downloaded 3CDs. I don't know what the Fedora equivalent of the PLF repository is (it might be livna or something?) but the procedure is the same.

Last edited by tkedwards; 10-27-2005 at 04:23 AM.
 
Old 10-27-2005, 04:33 AM   #23
reddazz
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Quote:
Originally posted by imsomehalf
reddazz,

Did you read the previous posts? It seems you didnt.


I have never stated any problem with the fact that Linux uses shared libraries. Its the perfect Object Oriented approach. I never questioned it. Its perfectly fine. And I never asked anyone to change it either.

At this stage the only DVD writer that I have is on the computer at home - with CentOs on it. Downloading Mandriva would pose a problem in that I dont have a DVD writer at work. I aint gonna buy the DVD from Mandriva. I have CentOs. I want to Keep CentOS.

We are pretty much debating the fact of dependency distribution with the applications at this stage. Everyone doesnt want it. I do - and they are kindly trying to make me see sense. :-)
I read all your posts. It seems you didn't understand mine. I wasn't saying download Mandriva, I was giving you an example of a distro that ships with multimedia enabled by default, that you could use as an alternative to what you are using now. I also understood what you were saying, but you don't seem to be accepting the fact that distro maintainers will never sort out their packaging in the ways that you are sugggesting due to factors that have been discussed by myself and others in this thread. CentOS is a good distro and if you want to keep it, then you will have to workaround its shortfalls (as well as yours i.e. not having a net connection). It can be painful, but thats the way it is.
 
Old 10-27-2005, 05:27 AM   #24
imsomehalf
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Reddazz,
Its not the Distro handlers that I'm getting at. Like CentOs/Red Hat, Mandriva, Suse etc. Not them. Its the people that program the apps and make them available on their websites or on sourceforge.net.

Im eternally grateful to them for making such great apps available - dont get me wrong.

I guess im exactly what gilbertt2 says. Its a time consuming and laborious job that will always keep linux in the background until its sorted.
 
Old 10-27-2005, 05:29 AM   #25
imsomehalf
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tkedwards,

The repository thing sounds good for one big download. But there are no links to suggest that such a download can be started. It seems that every individual package in the list would have to be downloaded individually. And thats grim....

When I say this I am referring to freshrpms.net
 
Old 10-27-2005, 06:18 AM   #26
tkedwards
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Quote:
It seems that every individual package in the list would have to be downloaded individually. And thats grim....
Just select all and drap-and-drop in an FTP client. You can even user Windows Explorer as an FTP client if your work machine is Windows (or konqueror in KDE if its Linux ).

Quote:
Its the people that program the apps and make them available on their websites or on sourceforge.net.
This is the point I was trying to get across in my last post. The whole reason we have distributions, and the whole reason you can't just take the multimedia packages from Mandriva for example and use them in Centos, is that you have to make seperate packages for each distro due to the differences in each distro. That's why each distro has their own package repositories. Its impossible to expect each open source project to make packages for each distro, they'd have to have intimate knowledge of each distro out there and they'd literally spend all their time packaging, not developing software. Not to mention the QA effort that distro makers go to in testing that all the packages work together and tweaking them so they do.
 
Old 10-27-2005, 09:53 AM   #27
cs-cam
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Quote:
Cs-cam - you dont do much to try to keep people on Linux - are you a Microsoft operative? :-)
Damn, you caught me. No you didn't, actually you seem to catch me everyday just when I've gotten home from work, not the best time.

tkedwards probably has the best suggestion of downloading their entire repos on however many CDs you'd need but you haven't answered my question. Did you try the thing with yum I told you to? I can't see why it wouldn't give you an exact list of what to install.

Quote:
Its a time consuming and laborious job that will always keep linux in the background until its sorted.
Your opinion, you need to realise that. Just because you think it doesn't mean everybody thinks it. Most people don't, there are lots of reasons linux has a smaller userbase than Windows and I for one am glad about that. The larger the userbase, the more stupid people around. Somebody make a joke about that theory, it hasn't gotten that bad in my mind. I'm probably one of the newbies he's referring to. If you had a net connection this would be a non-issue. You'd probably have a thread in the success stories forums raving about how intelligent linux package managers are. The problem is you picked the wrong distrobution for your requirements. That's okay, everything is fixable. We have suggested a number of ways to recify the situation in this thread, I'll wait eagerly for a reply from you reporting their success or failure.
 
Old 10-27-2005, 03:24 PM   #28
reddazz
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Quote:
Originally posted by imsomehalf
Reddazz,
Its not the Distro handlers that I'm getting at. Like CentOs/Red Hat, Mandriva, Suse etc. Not them. Its the people that program the apps and make them available on their websites or on sourceforge.net.

Im eternally grateful to them for making such great apps available - dont get me wrong.

I guess im exactly what gilbertt2 says. Its a time consuming and laborious job that will always keep linux in the background until its sorted.
The problem here is that if everyone started shipping their own version of qt, gtk or whatever lib with their app, binaries would be so huge and there would be conflicts with other packages which come bundled with the same libs. Its a problem that the devs work around by making use of shared libraries and its not really their fault that things are like this and have always been this way since Unix was first developed. As for whether such issues keep Linux in the background, it really depends on individuals. I didn't use Windows much before switching to Linux so learnt to do things the Linux/Unix way quite quickly. If you have been a long term Windows user then sometimes its difficult to switch over or to make sense of why things are done differently in other operating systems.
 
Old 10-28-2005, 10:01 AM   #29
imsomehalf
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Im definitely gonna try the yum thing cs..

I just havent yet because I've been trying to install XAMPP but keep running into problems with ...... :-) ..... yes ....... you ....... guessed it....................dependencies.


I also have been trying to add a load of codecs for mplayer to play rmvb files but my tar file was corrupted by my pen drive. Real annoying. So I've been distracted.

I would really like to know how to download the whole repositry. That would be handy. Work have the computers COMPLETELY locked down. I cant even format my pen drive - never mind install software. So an FTP program is out the window.

Internet Explorer times out every time I access an ftp site and its a totally terrible program for the job anyway. So all ftp directory listings are in basic html - hence I cannot drag and drop the files.

Reddazz - I understand the whole different OS = different way of life. I just assumed that common sense was a factor in some things. Linux was about for a long time before good internet connections came about - was it not? People had to make do without these installers(yum) back then.
 
Old 10-28-2005, 10:25 AM   #30
reddazz
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Quote:
Reddazz - I understand the whole different OS = different way of life. I just assumed that common sense was a factor in some things. Linux was about for a long time before good internet connections came about - was it not? People had to make do without these installers(yum) back then.
I used Linux back in the days when package managers weren't the norm and if you were lucky enough to have a personal net connection its was dial up. Shared libraries were still used then and it was lot more painful to resolve dependencies because even if you found the right packages, the net connections were slow and not ideal for downloading big packages. Most people I know who used Linux then, got cheap CD's from Linux resellers and didn't download much stuff from the net. I used to ask myself the same questions that you are asking now but once you look at the whole picture you will notice that the way things are now, is the ideal way for programs to share libraries etc without turning distros into bloatware (due to big binaries and numerous versions of the same libs) and causing conflicts between packages. For example many packages rely on glibc, if each package shipped with its own version of glibc can you imagine how big a distro would be and there would be a lot of file conflicts between the various glibc packages. "As for whether common sense is a factor in these things", have you ever thought of how many talented opensource devs there are but non have changed the status quo? I am letting this rest because it seems we are going around in circles.
 
  


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