Re: [MiNT] Re[2]: GEM boost

[Evan Langlois <Evan@CoolRunningConcepts.com>]

On Sun, 2005-07-17 at 20:36 -0400, Mark Duckworth wrote:
> i.e. sum install windom would download the windom packages and all
> dependant packages like gemlib, etc.  It's not my fault if you don't use
> yum or other available tools to make your life easier.  That dependency
> hell is a blessing in disguise.. Imagine if you just didn't know
> something was missing.  It's not a linux problem, it's an open source
> and gnu toolchain problem.. and guess what we're using?

I've been using Linux and RPMs long before any such thing as YUM was
ever available (well over 10 years).  Dependency hell is not a blessing.
Having to upgrade an entire system from CD (taking it down) just because
1 new application needs a newer version of a library than what currently
exists is HELL.  I just wanted to install one new application, not
reload my whole machine!  But that one or two libs it needed required
more and more and more and more libs.  The list got so big I decided to
just end it and --force it so I could have my application, and stuff
everywhere broke, so I upgraded the whole box to fix it, which only
broke other things that I didn't want to be upgraded (Apache 1 to Apache
2 should not be an automatic upgrade because its not fully compatible -
all my mod_perl had to be rewritten).  The new fully upgraded system was
total crap (upgrade from RH 7.2 to 8.0) and couldn't do proper curses to
a real terminal, only to xterm, and couldn't compile its own kernel from
source.  

I realize those are both very old distributions, but I switched away
from RPM after that, and never went back.  I'm considering taking a free
partition and making a mini system based on busybox and all
statically-linked libs just to compare the speed difference.

Dependany hell is part of the system of dynamic libs built on other
dynamic libs, and a linker that wants specific versions of all of them.
Gentoo gets around this by compiling everything to the libs you have on
your system, and recompiling libs when absolutely required (and having
multiple copies of libs in some cases, etc).  

I'm just afraid that the advantages of using MiNT over Linux disappear
as we adopt more and more from Linux.  I already have Linux.  I don't
need a clone.

> They're not old ports?  This is new stuff!  Oh my god you are such a
> blowhard.  I don't see you doing shit.. GNU ports is half the beauty of
> MiNT!  RPM's won't be used for gem programs sure, but the gnu foundation
> will need to be rpm based and maintained for proper stability... The
> sparemint authors understood this - why do you have such difficulty?

All I said was that if an installer was needed, there should be a simple
GUI installer available.  OS X has plenty of ports from GNU as well, but
you don't see OS X people dropping to command line and typing RPM.
Atari used to be on-par with Mac for user-friendliness, and its now so
far behind that the new goal seems to be to make it as user-friendly as
RPM.  Thats just sad.

> You're so quick to attack something that is currently being implemented
> and maintained, but I notice you're lacking in constructive criticism
> and sounds improvement methods.  

Everytime I give my suggestions most people don't read it because its
too long, and no one pays attension anyway.  Its a hell of a lot easier
to say "Lets use xxx from yyy" than it is to try to explain something
new and original.  No one interested.

> You know what?  It takes a lot of time to port those damn packages
> too... and I know for a fact MiNT users use them.

I never said anything different.

Don't make it personal.  I was discussing the direction we're moving in
and trying to question if becoming a linux clone was really the
direction we want to be going in.