Changes to email web page, and next Sunday's meeting
I know this is what you've all been waiting for ;-) I've just added an "unsubscribe" section to the ALUG email page, if you are struggling to keep up with the MASSIVE amounts of messages on the various ALUG lists! http://www.anglian.lug.org.uk/email.html As Brett mentioned, it would be useful to get an idea of who is going on Sunday, and if there's anything in particular you want to see. Let me know if you have any download requests etc, too. I will be bringing a few Debian CDs with me (trying to convince y'all to switch to a proper distribution ;-) so let me know in advance if you want a copy (I know I still owe someone a CD from last meeting). Andrew. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- A.Savory at uea.ac.uk All views are my own - who else would want them? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ This email came to you via the Anglian Linux User Group list ] [ If you only wish to recieve event announcements, email the ] [ SUBJECTs of "unsubscribe alug" and "subscribe alug-announce" ] [ to listserver@stu.uea.ac.uk -- We do need your support, tho' ]
I will be bringing a few Debian CDs with me (trying to convince y'all to switch to a proper distribution ;-) so let me know in advance if you want a copy (I know I still owe someone a CD from last meeting).
I've still got a fair old chunk of disk space free, so if it would be helpful I'll happily download a mirror of the Debian archives for anyone wanting to either try the cutting edge, or to get to content that we can't fit on the CDs. As Brett said, I'd be eternally greatful if you could let me/us know (I know Andrew often maintains a list for us) if you are coming, and if you're bringing any computers or other bits of kit... That way I can try and sort out IP addresses and DNS before we start this time! Any other requests..? Paul [ This email came to you via the Anglian Linux User Group list ] [ If you only wish to recieve event announcements, email the ] [ SUBJECTs of "unsubscribe alug" and "subscribe alug-announce" ] [ to listserver@stu.uea.ac.uk -- We do need your support, tho' ]
On Mon, 30 Aug 1999, Andrew Savory wrote:
As Brett mentioned, it would be useful to get an idea of who is going on Sunday, and if there's anything in particular you want to see. Let me know if you have any download requests etc, too.
I'll come on two conditions: 1. My house-hunting on Fri/Sat doesn't get in the way 2. Someone can provide transport from the Eaton Park area of Norwich.
I will be bringing a few Debian CDs with me (trying to convince y'all to switch to a proper distribution ;-) so let me know in advance if you want a copy (I know I still owe someone a CD from last meeting).
Cool. Y'know, I've been waiting for the new Debian (2.2?) to come out before switching from RH6, but since this seems still miles off, I just tonight decided to clean out my current Linux and Windows mounts, reinstall RH6 hopfully taking one of the Windows data partitions too (I'm only using Windows for multimedia and when my employers want me to do DreamWeaver or ASP stuff now) and use RPM for installations from now on. My only problem with Debian is that the .deb packages seem a great deal less in distribution/access than .rpms. Go to a software website, you can more likely download .tar.gz and .rpms, but never .debs. And where .rpms aren't available, there's often a .spec file in the tarball for me to go rpm -ta <tarball> with; I don't know about .debs on this point, but I would doubt if such preparedness was true for both systems. So, can you convice me that I can grab, or build myself, .debs from latest tarballs pretty much as soon as sources are released? I'm talking mainly glib/gtk/gnome here; I'll want to build gnome and e from cvs sources. And how easy is it to build .spec files for packages? The same for the Debian guys too with their way... God I wish FSF would get it's act together and build a GNU package manager for all distros. It's the one area where Linux is totally beaten be Windows :( -- James Green | jg@cyberstorm.demon.co.uk Site Manager LinuxNewbie.com (LNC) | webmaster or jg@linuxnewbie.com Maintainer, demon.tech.modems 56k FAQ | dtm-faq@cyberstorm.demon.co.uk [ This email came to you via the Anglian Linux User Group list ] [ If you only wish to recieve event announcements, email the ] [ SUBJECTs of "unsubscribe alug" and "subscribe alug-announce" ] [ to listserver@stu.uea.ac.uk -- We do need your support, tho' ]
On Mon, Aug 30, 1999 at 10:59:29PM +0100, James Green wrote:
Cool. Y'know, I've been waiting for the new Debian (2.2?) to come out before switching from RH6, but since this seems still miles off, I just
2.1r3 will hopefully be out soon. I wonder if it will appear in time for CDs for ALUG 3? Or maybe Slackware 5, but that's hopeful. Debian 2.2 is looking to be still three months away.
My only problem with Debian is that the .deb packages seem a great deal less in distribution/access than .rpms. Go to a software website, you can more likely download .tar.gz and .rpms, but never .debs.
That's because there are more debs in the distribution tree, which has the advantage of being audited more carefully, inside their extensive bugtracking system and probably available from a site close to you. RPMs are fickedly wucked, as nearly all dependencies are broken on contributed packages.
together and build a GNU package manager for all distros. It's the one area where Linux is totally beaten be Windows :(
!!! Windows currently has *no* package management, hence the proliferation of InstallShield and similar tools. MJR [ This email came to you via the Anglian Linux User Group list ] [ If you only wish to recieve event announcements, email the ] [ SUBJECTs of "unsubscribe alug" and "subscribe alug-announce" ] [ to listserver@stu.uea.ac.uk -- We do need your support, tho' ]
On Tue, 31 Aug 1999, MJ Ray wrote:
On Mon, Aug 30, 1999 at 10:59:29PM +0100, James Green wrote:
Cool. Y'know, I've been waiting for the new Debian (2.2?) to come out before switching from RH6, but since this seems still miles off, I just
2.1r3 will hopefully be out soon. I wonder if it will appear in time for CDs for ALUG 3? Or maybe Slackware 5, but that's hopeful.
I thought Slack 5 had just entered devel? Not even mozilla-like yet ;-)
Debian 2.2 is looking to be still three months away.
My only problem with Debian is that the .deb packages seem a great deal less in distribution/access than .rpms. Go to a software website, you can more likely download .tar.gz and .rpms, but never .debs.
That's because there are more debs in the distribution tree, which has the advantage of being audited more carefully, inside their extensive bugtracking system and probably available from a site close to you.
RPMs are fickedly wucked, as nearly all dependencies are broken on contributed packages.
BUT, how easy is it to make .debs? I grab a tarball or patch a tarball; I want to create a package to install; with rpm I have a reasonable change of having a .spec file to to the job with, what about Debian's system? Of course, the alternative is to wait for Debian to come out with a .deb, but how long does this take? I know that RPMs for GNOME only started coming out hours after each new release following a long thread "encouraging" someone to get their arse into gear and package them up - even now they're only available as unofficial rpms, RHAD eventually decide to release them in batch; this is not good. I must admit, the only thing holding me back from Debian is the uncertainty over building .debs myself and availability of official ones.
together and build a GNU package manager for all distros. It's the one area where Linux is totally beaten be Windows :(
!!! Windows currently has *no* package management, hence the proliferation of InstallShield and similar tools.
Well at least Windows has the one dominent system that practically *everyone* conforms to, Linux/Unix has RPM and deb and probably a couple of others; yes, rpm is domiment, but is hasn't compeletely penetrated the market, which I why I say a standard-across-distros GNU Packager is needed. Still, I just created my first rpm - gtk+-1.2.4. -- James Green | jg@cyberstorm.demon.co.uk Site Manager LinuxNewbie.com (LNC) | webmaster or jg@linuxnewbie.com Maintainer, demon.tech.modems 56k FAQ | dtm-faq@cyberstorm.demon.co.uk [ This email came to you via the Anglian Linux User Group list ] [ If you only wish to recieve event announcements, email the ] [ SUBJECTs of "unsubscribe alug" and "subscribe alug-announce" ] [ to listserver@stu.uea.ac.uk -- We do need your support, tho' ]
On Tue, Aug 31, 1999 at 12:26:27AM +0100, James Green wrote:
BUT, how easy is it to make .debs? I grab a tarball or patch a tarball; I want to create a package to install; with rpm I have a reasonable change of having a .spec file to to the job with, what about Debian's system?
http://va.debian.org/~jaldhar/ is a fairly good introduction to the system. It's more complicated, but that's partly because of the higher QA on official debs. If you're just installing on one machine, there are other ways to make dpkg know about them.
Of course, the alternative is to wait for Debian to come out with a .deb, but how long does this take?
Speaking from when I last used Gnome, a few months ago, it depends how much risk you want to take. Debian stable lags a long way behind, unstable is up to a week behind, or if you take it directly from the staging area you'll get it the same day. (I don't know the current location of the staging area, though.) Stable is just that, stable. Unstable will burn you occasionally and taking from the staging area is liable to break at any time.
Well at least Windows has the one dominent system that practically *everyone* conforms to, Linux/Unix has RPM and deb and probably a couple of others; yes, rpm is domiment, but is hasn't compeletely penetrated the market, which I why I say a standard-across-distros GNU Packager is needed.
No, source tarballs are the standard that (nearly) everyone uses. There are prettier "autoconf"-type tools out there that dress the whole "configure; make; su -c 'make install'" up in pretty windows, too, but they've never really caught on. There is a "standard-across-distros GNU Packager" (well, package management system) called stow out there. encap is the closest any distribution comes to a similar system. MJR [ This email came to you via the Anglian Linux User Group list ] [ If you only wish to recieve event announcements, email the ] [ SUBJECTs of "unsubscribe alug" and "subscribe alug-announce" ] [ to listserver@stu.uea.ac.uk -- We do need your support, tho' ]
On Tue, 31 Aug 1999, James Green wrote:
I thought Slack 5 had just entered devel? Not even mozilla-like yet ;-)
Not sure it's even that far - last I heard, the slack5 directory had only just been created <g>
BUT, how easy is it to make .debs?
I've never had to -
I must admit, the only thing holding me back from Debian is the uncertainty over building .debs myself and availability of official ones.
Availability on unstable is VERY good - I just about never have to grab a tarball, and what Debian doesn't have I can usually get from the perl shell. If all else fails, it's possible to do the "tar zxf; make; make install" routine.
Well at least Windows has the one dominent system that practically *everyone* conforms to
Doesn't mean it's any good though. How often have you installed a package on Windows only to find it overwrites files belonging to other programs, or removed one and had half your system go to?
which I why I say a standard-across-distros GNU Packager is needed.
Indeed; InstallShield for nux would be nice... Andrew. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- A.Savory at uea.ac.uk All views are my own - who else would want them? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ This email came to you via the Anglian Linux User Group list ] [ If you only wish to recieve event announcements, email the ] [ SUBJECTs of "unsubscribe alug" and "subscribe alug-announce" ] [ to listserver@stu.uea.ac.uk -- We do need your support, tho' ]
On Mon, 30 Aug 1999, James Green wrote:
2. Someone can provide transport from the Eaton Park area of Norwich.
May be possible - depends on how healthy my car is by then. I'll speak to you later in the week! Andrew. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- A.Savory at uea.ac.uk All views are my own - who else would want them? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ This email came to you via the Anglian Linux User Group list ] [ If you only wish to recieve event announcements, email the ] [ SUBJECTs of "unsubscribe alug" and "subscribe alug-announce" ] [ to listserver@stu.uea.ac.uk -- We do need your support, tho' ]
On Mon, Aug 30, 1999 at 10:14:17PM +0100, Andrew Savory wrote:
I've just added an "unsubscribe" section to the ALUG email page, if you are struggling to keep up with the MASSIVE amounts of messages on the various ALUG lists!
Of course, this information is already attached to the end of each message. Could you please remove the unsubscribe facility, as it allows people to unsubscribe other readers in a fairly untraceable manner? Now I know this is fairly easy to do anyway, but let's not invite trouble.
As Brett mentioned, it would be useful to get an idea of who is going on Sunday, and if there's anything in particular you want to see. Let me know if you have any download requests etc, too.
Now we've three people offering to collect details of people coming and requests, kit, etc. Brett was first to offer and I suspect a few of you (like me) have already told him. Can you please continue telling Brett? Brett, could you pass details of kit to Paul to handle and requested downloads to Andrew or Paul. MJR [ This email came to you via the Anglian Linux User Group list ] [ If you only wish to recieve event announcements, email the ] [ SUBJECTs of "unsubscribe alug" and "subscribe alug-announce" ] [ to listserver@stu.uea.ac.uk -- We do need your support, tho' ]
As Brett mentioned, it would be useful to get an idea of who is going on Sunday, and if there's anything in particular you want to see. Let me know if you have any download requests etc, too.
I'd really like a demo of GhostScript and how I can get it to print my StarOffice stuff.
I will be bringing a few Debian CDs with me (trying to convince y'all to switch to a proper distribution ;-) so let me know in advance if you want a copy (I know I still owe someone a CD from last meeting).
I'm up for a change to Debian, I might be able to bring an empty box to try it out on so put me down for a CD please. I'll bring a small hub, a couple of long patch leads, some 240V multi-way leads and possibly a complete Linux virgin to have a look at what all the fuss is about. Cheers, BJ [ This email came to you via the Anglian Linux User Group list ] [ If you only wish to recieve event announcements, email the ] [ SUBJECTs of "unsubscribe alug" and "subscribe alug-announce" ] [ to listserver@stu.uea.ac.uk -- We do need your support, tho' ]
participants (5)
-
Andrew Savory -
James Green -
John Woodard -
MJ Ray -
Paul Russell