I was wondering why in linux with every package you want to install you have dependency lurking around, but in windows it doesn't happen that much?

windows: installs everything at one time so the program does what it wants to do, and how it wants to do it

linux: installs everything in seperate packages, so u can pick and choose what features you want to use, and what features you dont

This is, of course, much less of an issue if you install from source rather than packages (which suck)

If you install from source you have to be very knowledgeable about what you need and can let go.

I wish there would be more consensus on packages and that they wouldn't brake so often. Apt-get has more broken than updated for me.

Hmm. It seems the non-uniformity of Linux rears its ugly head again. Probably the biggest pit-fall from not being governed by a single entity?

Windows has lots of dependancy problems aswell, really. But Linux seems to have 100 times as much. Maybe its just me and my gruddy install :P

I'll take a not-working-so-well copy of Linux over a working perfectly copy of winodoze (is there such an animal?!) any day! Since I started using Linux, I've been challenged and force to use my hatrack more than I ever was with windoze. Besides, from what I've seen so far, forums like this, where users help each other, works out MUCH better than trying to call some tech support guy that's only concerned about whether he'll get his lunch break on time ( half the time, they don't speak your language very well, if at all, either). That's one of the things that makes Linux great - we work together to achieve common goals, fix the things that are broke, and make better the things that work. Sorry for the speach!

Steve

Well when theres work to be done, a faulty linux distribution is not what you need. I have spent far to much time twiddling in Linux just to get it to work.

The descentralised nature of Linux's help is good in some respects, but as far as being fast and to-the-point, you cant rely on a community in that regards.

rafc: Gentoo's portage system can let anyone compile from source (altho knowing how to do it yourself, and how compiling works helps a lot)

the only time i ever got a broken package in Gentoo was in bootstraping it (it seems to be random, most of the time glibc doesn't compile right, so when its installed it breaks everything and portage errors out, but it works if you try it enough )

and the dependency's are mostly the precompiled packages, as the package was compiled on a system and expects to find that same system on your machine (by system i mean compiled libs, if it is a different version, it might be incompatible)

compiling from source solves this as the package will be compiled it will link up with your system and not force you to have like 3 versions of the same library just to run a few apps

in windows there isn't much of a problem as everything is the same (and thus why viruses/worms will can spread from computer to another one and still work,, in linux a virus/worm will probably run into dependency issues on quite a few systems (and who said dependence problems were a bad thing ? ))

I disagree - you can be much less knowlegeable - i.e. you need only version x.y.z or above of a particular library rather than exactly version x.y.z as you would with RPM's. If anything this means that using make or configure scripts is likely to throw up fewer dependency problems as often with RPM's they complain about needing a version of a library older than the currently installed one.

I find that as long as I'm putting libraries likely to be used by more than one application into /usr/lib then I have very few dependency problems...usually none unless the app happens to use some proprietry and rare graphics or parsing library.

And blessed be the virus/trojan writers, for they can target
a uniform mass of lemmings ...

Autonomy is a good thing, mankind has had a few
Fuehrers too many already.



Cheers,
Tink

Sure, but the problem is not anyone has the time or will to be completely autonomous about everything.
Most of the time I just want things working in order to be productive, and only be knowledgeable about some specific things I'm interested in. Being confronted with broken dependencies, update hell etc and days reading manuals in order to find a possible solution to one of 10 problems encountered is not one of them.

I think we should aim for a system of principal autonomy: everyone can decide to have the amount of autonomy one likes in anything he likes. And others should be able to trust upon the realisations they do, being able to control their work when needed, but generally do their thing having a reliable backing in other areas.

If you don't like autonomy, pay for the service.

Get xandros or linspire, lindash or whatever they call
themselves now ;)

Live with the fact that you won't be able to install
many a thing because it's simply not possible to have
everything working together all the time.


Cheers,
Tink

I didn't say I don't want autonomy.

And I am not troubled because some things don't work. But for now, everything brakes every time I do a simple apt-get eg. And that's really frustrating, not having a workable desktop anymore, no links working anymore etc.

I think things could be made easier for the general user., who just like to have things to work and be more knowledgeable eg in tweaking their desktop look under the hood (not in resolving a broken system).

I presonally don't like debian, but if you stuck with
e.g. stable you wouldn't have any of these problems.

If you need bleeding edge be prepared for pain ;O


Cheers,
Tink

rafc: if you don't like apt-get then try a different distro (more like one with a different package system)