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

[Mark Duckworth <mduckworth@atari-source.com>]

On Mon, 2005-07-18 at 18:11 -0500, Evan Langlois wrote:

> 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.  

are you broken?  You do rpm --rebuild package.src.rpm.  This will
rebuild it against the libs you ACTUALLY have.  It's how I run many
packages for FC3 on my FC4 box.  RPM has good solutions to these
problems.  These arguments have all been made before and they almost all
stem from ignorance.

> 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.
> 

Ermm..  Well yeah but they don't have a lot of ports available period.
For those ports you do want that don't exist like Gaim, for this they
use fink which is a debian based packaging system.

> 
> 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.
> 

I read them.  Because despite the fact that you speak volumes of
nonsense, you have sometimes the right attitude and you seem to have a
smart mind.

> 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.

We will *never* be a linux clone.  Best of all worlds is all we're
really looking for here.  I think everyone can agree with that
sentiment.  Atari will always be special and unique.  And for every
command line shell problem, an elegant GEM solution will be sure to be
implemented..  So relax.

Mark