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I'd actually disagree on this point. Ubuntu has introduced a number of refinements to the dpkg world that have been pretty good. Most useful, in my mind, is t
by mcpherrinm 14y ago
I'd actually disagree on this point.
Ubuntu has introduced a number of refinements to the dpkg world that have been pretty good.
Most useful, in my mind, is their set of tools for working with PPAs. They're much simpler to run than setting up an entire new repository of packages.
- dfc 14y agoSeriously? You think that PPAs and your other unnamed improvements tower over the apt package management system? Without PPAs apt-get would be yet another kludgy package management system? Sure apt-add-repository is a nice time saver but how hard is: echo deb http://repo.net/ unstable main >> /etc/apt/sources.list I think we might be miscommunicating because I can't imagine anyone making this argument. I'm not sure how old you are but I can remember what package management was like on slackware and redhat a decade ago when I switched. Moving to debian was like a scene in a movie when it goes from black and white to full color.
- philh 14y agoDoesn't Ubuntu have apt as well though? Ubuntu's package management may have come from Debian, but that doesn't make it inferior. It sounds to me like you're trying to make a different argument: that Debian's package management was a bigger deal, in some sense, than Ubuntu's incremental improvements on it.
- dfc 14y agoUbuntu's package management system is apt and dpkg. Apt and dpkg were Debian projects long before ubuntu was even a whisper. Ubuntu uses Debian's pakage management system, it does not have it's own system.
- philh 14y agoYes, that's what I thought. Ubuntu uses Debian's system with minor changes. If you want to say Ubuntu's package management is second (inferior) to Debian's, you need to show the changes are bad, not minor.
- dfc 14y agoUbuntu does not have a package manager of its own. It uses Debian's. Ubuntu was the second guest to arrive at the apt party.
- philh 14y agoSo what? Ubuntu has package management. It is a superior experience to the package management in Debian. (Or so I assume, since you have not disputed it.) Therefore it is not true that package management in Ubuntu is second to Debian. I'm probably going to tap out here, because this doesn't seem like it's going to become productive.
- mcpherrinm 14y agoWith respect to PPAs, I'm not speaking from a user perspective, but from that of a sysadmin having to maintain mirrors. PPAs are just easier than setting up all the key signing and mirror infrastructure. Yeah, apt and dpkg are great compared to what else was available a decade ago. But that doesn't mean that Ubuntu's additions, however incremental, are worthless or somehow inferior to Debian. Incremental gains are still gains.
- dfc 14y agoI'm confused about PPAs and setting up a mirror infrastructure. What mirror infrastructure? What key signing is involved in a mirror that is not involved in signing packages for a PPA? Ubuntu's additions are nice. But they are minor improvements to apt/dpkg. Without them apt and dpkg would still be phenomenal.
- mcpherrinm 14y agoI administer a small number of systems and deploy custom packages to all of those. Running a custom mirror, signing packages, managing keyrings on the mirror, and getting them on all systems is nontrivially harder than using a PPA and associated scripts. Now, I run a mix of Ubuntu and Debian systems. I don't use PPAs that much, but when I do they're just plain easier. Yes, it's an incremental gain, but that's a gain. It makes them better. They weren't first, but they're innovating. Sometimes, the "innovations" aren't fantastic especially some of the more harebrained stuff on desktop (PulseAudio, avahi). But no longer is Ubuntu just a Debian rip-off: They're producing new and useful additions. The relative merits are debatable, and so I'm not going to continue that thread. In the end, it boils down to X + epsilon > X, for any epsilon > 0.