installing Debian is like being greased, and wrestling with an eel.
This is completely mad.
I have installed Debian and derivatives of Debian many times (on a little Dell that I bought for £50, specifically for the purpose of playing with distributions, and on a couple of other boxes, one a 200mhz MMX, one a home assembled Shuttle).
Debian Pure (now another name) installed over the net or from a Debian DVD with no problems.
Debian Sarge, from a magazine cover DVD booted and installed with no problems.
Mepis installed with no problems.
Ubuntu installed with no problems (though using it, the old version I tried a year ago, was a different matter).
Knoppix has an install option - it just went in and worked.
I have had some problems installing things. I couldn't get Dragonfly to work at all. I had problems with one of the BSDs, or at least, problems figuring out how to get to a proper desktop. I've had temporary difficulties with Slackware, largely owing to the lack of a 'go back' option at various critical points. I had trouble with Mandrake 10.x on some machines. The first issue of elive wouldn't work properly. I never could get Woody to work. So, its not that I can do everything perfectly and easily, and I'm not at all expert in this stuff, but recent Debians are SIMPLY NOT A PROBLEM.
Peter
The message 200511061329.21183.berriep@btinternet.com from Peter berriep@btinternet.com contains these words:
installing Debian is like being greased, and wrestling with an eel.
This is completely mad.
I have installed Debian and derivatives of Debian many times (on a little Dell that I bought for £50, specifically for the purpose of playing with distributions, and on a couple of other boxes, one a 200mhz MMX, one a home assembled Shuttle).
Debian Pure (now another name) installed over the net or from a Debian DVD with no problems.
Debian Sarge, from a magazine cover DVD booted and installed with no problems.
Please pay attention at the back, there!
Mepis installed with no problems.
Ubuntu installed with no problems (though using it, the old version I tried a year ago, was a different matter).
Knoppix has an install option - it just went in and worked.
I have had some problems installing things. I couldn't get Dragonfly to work at all. I had problems with one of the BSDs, or at least, problems figuring out how to get to a proper desktop. I've had temporary difficulties with Slackware, largely owing to the lack of a 'go back' option at various critical points. I had trouble with Mandrake 10.x on some machines. The first issue of elive wouldn't work properly. I never could get Woody to work.
Quite.
So, its not that I can do everything perfectly and easily, and I'm not at all expert in this stuff, but recent Debians are SIMPLY NOT A PROBLEM.
No need to shout - we aren't talking about recent Debians.
We were discussing Woody.
On Sunday 06 November 2005 13:29, Peter wrote:
but recent Debians are SIMPLY NOT A PROBLEM.
Peter
Well apart from the fact that they are missing large amounts of software from their standard distribution. Admittedly this software is of the non-Free variety, but in the real world it is often necessary to use such software.
I can never use Debian due to the zealotry of it's developers in this regard.
Matt
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Matt Parker matt@mpcontracting.co.uk wrote:
On Sunday 06 November 2005 13:29, Peter wrote:
but recent Debians are SIMPLY NOT A PROBLEM.
Peter
Well apart from the fact that they are missing large amounts of software from their standard distribution. Admittedly this software is of the non-Free variety, but in the real world it is often necessary to use such software.
Which particular non-free software are you talking about? What of that do you actually *NEED*?!
I can never use Debian due to the zealotry of it's developers in this regard.
You know, I'd rather the zealotry than being in a situation where I install something on a whim to later discover that in installing it I've broken 6 laws, killed a kitty, made someones grans ill, and broken the licencing term by not signing a goldfish. YMMV.
- -- Brett Parker web: http://www.sommitrealweird.co.uk/ email: iDunno@sommitrealweird.co.uk
On Sunday 06 November 2005 13:45, Brett Parker wrote:
Matt Parker matt@mpcontracting.co.uk wrote:
On Sunday 06 November 2005 13:29, Peter wrote:
but recent Debians are SIMPLY NOT A PROBLEM.
Peter
Well apart from the fact that they are missing large amounts of software from their standard distribution. Admittedly this software is of the non-Free variety, but in the real world it is often necessary to use such software.
Which particular non-free software are you talking about? What of that do you actually *NEED*?!
JDK 1.5 is a basic requirement for a start.
I can never use Debian due to the zealotry of it's developers in this regard.
You know, I'd rather the zealotry than being in a situation where I install something on a whim to later discover that in installing it I've broken 6 laws, killed a kitty, made someones grans ill, and broken the licencing term by not signing a goldfish. YMMV.
That just doesn't happen in the real world if you're aware of what you're installing. It's a strawman argument.
Matt
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Matt Parker matt@mpcontracting.co.uk wrote:
On Sunday 06 November 2005 13:45, Brett Parker wrote:
Matt Parker matt@mpcontracting.co.uk wrote:
On Sunday 06 November 2005 13:29, Peter wrote:
but recent Debians are SIMPLY NOT A PROBLEM.
Peter
Well apart from the fact that they are missing large amounts of software from their standard distribution. Admittedly this software is of the non-Free variety, but in the real world it is often necessary to use such software.
Which particular non-free software are you talking about? What of that do you actually *NEED*?!
JDK 1.5 is a basic requirement for a start.
*YAWN* - because it's *SOOO* hard to do the following: apt-get install java-package <download latest jdk from sun> make-jpkg that.bin.file.you.downloaded dpkg -i the.deb.it.just.created
This is *not* a problem in debian, this is a problem with Suns licence, maybe you've never read it?
I can never use Debian due to the zealotry of it's developers in this regard.
You know, I'd rather the zealotry than being in a situation where I install something on a whim to later discover that in installing it I've broken 6 laws, killed a kitty, made someones grans ill, and broken the licencing term by not signing a goldfish. YMMV.
That just doesn't happen in the real world if you're aware of what you're installing. It's a strawman argument.
Right - so are you advocating that debian displays the licence under which the software you are installing is licenced? or what? Have you actually got a solution to the problem, or are you on a random "debian doesn't have this software and I can't be arsed to read the licence to find out why" rant? I'm yet to find anything that's under a reasonable licence that isn't already in debian, or has an ITP against it, or is just plain too damned new...
Oh, and of course, if you *really* must, there's absolutely nothing stopping you from building from source, hell, you could even generate a debian meta package that provides any dependencies that are required by other software that is in debian... maybe you're just lazy?
*GRRR*. - -- Brett Parker web: http://www.sommitrealweird.co.uk/ email: iDunno@sommitrealweird.co.uk
On Sunday 06 November 2005 14:31, Brett Parker wrote:
Matt Parker matt@mpcontracting.co.uk wrote:
On Sunday 06 November 2005 13:45, Brett Parker wrote:
Matt Parker matt@mpcontracting.co.uk wrote:
On Sunday 06 November 2005 13:29, Peter wrote:
but recent Debians are SIMPLY NOT A PROBLEM.
Peter
Well apart from the fact that they are missing large amounts of software from their standard distribution. Admittedly this software is of the non-Free variety, but in the real world it is often necessary to use such software.
Which particular non-free software are you talking about? What of that do you actually *NEED*?!
JDK 1.5 is a basic requirement for a start.
*YAWN* - because it's *SOOO* hard to do the following: apt-get install java-package
<download latest jdk from sun> make-jpkg that.bin.file.you.downloaded dpkg -i the.deb.it.just.created
This is *not* a problem in debian, this is a problem with Suns licence, maybe you've never read it?
I can never use Debian due to the zealotry of it's developers in this regard.
You know, I'd rather the zealotry than being in a situation where I install something on a whim to later discover that in installing it I've broken 6 laws, killed a kitty, made someones grans ill, and broken the licencing term by not signing a goldfish. YMMV.
That just doesn't happen in the real world if you're aware of what you're installing. It's a strawman argument.
Right - so are you advocating that debian displays the licence under which the software you are installing is licenced? or what? Have you actually got a solution to the problem, or are you on a random "debian doesn't have this software and I can't be arsed to read the licence to find out why" rant? I'm yet to find anything that's under a reasonable licence that isn't already in debian, or has an ITP against it, or is just plain too damned new...
Oh, and of course, if you *really* must, there's absolutely nothing stopping you from building from source, hell, you could even generate a debian meta package that provides any dependencies that are required by other software that is in debian... maybe you're just lazy?
*GRRR*.
Don't care what you say. I have work to do. I don't want my distribution to require me to spend days Googling to work out how to install my software. I want to tick the boxes in the installer/package manager, have it resolve any dependencies, and then find it in my menu.
As for licensing, to be honest I don't care about that as long as the license gives me the right to use it.
I use Linux because I prefer it to Windows, not because I have a particular bee in my bonnet about software licensing (that would be hypocritical since I happen to write closed source software myself - though I also write open source [Apache licensed as it happens] software as well).
Matt
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Matt Parker matt@mpcontracting.co.uk wrote:
<snippage class="Excessive" />
Don't care what you say. I have work to do. I don't want my distribution to require me to spend days Googling to work out how to install my software. I want to tick the boxes in the installer/package manager, have it resolve any dependencies, and then find it in my menu.
OK - so what *do* you use then that has such a package mangler that has the diversity of software available in debian? And who needs to google, 3 seconds on #debian-uk or #alug on OFTC will get you an answer very quickly. 99% of the battle is knowing where to look... If your distribution didn't have xyz package, what steps would you take to make sure that the package list used by the distribution wasn't nuked by you doing a make install and it randomly overwriting some critical libraries (been there, done that, got the damned t-shirt).
As for licensing, to be honest I don't care about that as long as the license gives me the right to use it.
Being a sys admin, you've just made me cringe. So, how do you know that you have the right to use the software, precisely, without reading the licence?
I use Linux because I prefer it to Windows, not because I have a particular bee in my bonnet about software licensing (that would be hypocritical since I happen to write closed source software myself - though I also write open source [Apache licensed as it happens] software as well).
You write closed source software... good for you, I hope that you've checked the licences for the libraries that you're using and that you're not violating them... oh, no, wait... you don't care about licencing... please provide me with a list of software that you develop so that I know what to steer clear of, it's bound to be stupidly licenced, and probably breaking licences of other software.
I use linux because I find that it provides me a nice working environment with much greater stability, it doesn't, however, mean that I don't pay attention to the licences under which the software I have installed is under.
The current most annoying piece of non-free software that I have installed is the nvidia-glx driver, actually... looking at vrms, it's the only one that I actually need on this laptop. I can easily remove the other non-free software, I don't use it, it was installed as I wanted to test some things.
*SIGH* - -- Brett Parker web: http://www.sommitrealweird.co.uk/ email: iDunno@sommitrealweird.co.uk
On Sunday 06 November 2005 14:53, Brett Parker wrote:
Matt Parker matt@mpcontracting.co.uk wrote:
<snippage class="Excessive" />
Don't care what you say. I have work to do. I don't want my distribution to require me to spend days Googling to work out how to install my software. I want to tick the boxes in the installer/package manager, have it resolve any dependencies, and then find it in my menu.
OK - so what *do* you use then that has such a package mangler that has the diversity of software available in debian? And who needs to google, 3 seconds on #debian-uk or #alug on OFTC will get you an answer very quickly. 99% of the battle is knowing where to look... If your distribution didn't have xyz package, what steps would you take to make sure that the package list used by the distribution wasn't nuked by you doing a make install and it randomly overwriting some critical libraries (been there, done that, got the damned t-shirt).
SuSE Pro 9.3
As for licensing, to be honest I don't care about that as long as the license gives me the right to use it.
Being a sys admin, you've just made me cringe. So, how do you know that you have the right to use the software, precisely, without reading the licence?
Because I *do* read the license, carefully. Anything that I'm in doubt about goes in front of my lawyer.
I use Linux because I prefer it to Windows, not because I have a particular bee in my bonnet about software licensing (that would be hypocritical since I happen to write closed source software myself - though I also write open source [Apache licensed as it happens] software as well).
You write closed source software... good for you, I hope that you've checked the licences for the libraries that you're using and that you're not violating them... oh, no, wait... you don't care about licencing... please provide me with a list of software that you develop so that I know what to steer clear of, it's bound to be stupidly licenced, and probably breaking licences of other software.
You're a moron. I don't break the licenses of the libraries I use (nearly all Apache license varients or BSD - I steer clear of GPL/LGPL for this reason). Nearly everything I do is audited by Deloittes (since I do a lot of Government work) and they're VERY hot on this sort of thing.
Just because I write closed-source software doesn't mean I'm some kind of vampire who steals from the open-source community.
Matt
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Matt Parker matt@mpcontracting.co.uk wrote:
On Sunday 06 November 2005 14:53, Brett Parker wrote:
Matt Parker matt@mpcontracting.co.uk wrote:
<snippage class="Excessive" />
Don't care what you say. I have work to do. I don't want my distribution to require me to spend days Googling to work out how to install my software. I want to tick the boxes in the installer/package manager, have it resolve any dependencies, and then find it in my menu.
OK - so what *do* you use then that has such a package mangler that has the diversity of software available in debian? And who needs to google, 3 seconds on #debian-uk or #alug on OFTC will get you an answer very quickly. 99% of the battle is knowing where to look... If your distribution didn't have xyz package, what steps would you take to make sure that the package list used by the distribution wasn't nuked by you doing a make install and it randomly overwriting some critical libraries (been there, done that, got the damned t-shirt).
SuSE Pro 9.3
Ah - so you use a distribution that has enough commercial clout, and no social agreement, to actually distribute the JDK... I see you avoided answering the second part of the question though... I assume that you build rpms to stop this from happening... now, what's the difference between having to google to find how to build the rpm and having to google to find how to build a .deb?
As for licensing, to be honest I don't care about that as long as the license gives me the right to use it.
Being a sys admin, you've just made me cringe. So, how do you know that you have the right to use the software, precisely, without reading the licence?
Because I *do* read the license, carefully. Anything that I'm in doubt about goes in front of my lawyer.
Right - so why the hell say you don't care about them, then... Would you please stop being so damned flippant and actually say what you mean?
I use Linux because I prefer it to Windows, not because I have a particular bee in my bonnet about software licensing (that would be hypocritical since I happen to write closed source software myself - though I also write open source [Apache licensed as it happens] software as well).
You write closed source software... good for you, I hope that you've checked the licences for the libraries that you're using and that you're not violating them... oh, no, wait... you don't care about licencing... please provide me with a list of software that you develop so that I know what to steer clear of, it's bound to be stupidly licenced, and probably breaking licences of other software.
You're a moron. I don't break the licenses of the libraries I use (nearly all Apache license varients or BSD - I steer clear of GPL/LGPL for this reason). Nearly everything I do is audited by Deloittes (since I do a lot of Government work) and they're VERY hot on this sort of thing.
Nice, direct attack. Love it. I'm a moron because you can't actually say what you mean. typical closed source developer mentality at work there.
Just because I write closed-source software doesn't mean I'm some kind of vampire who steals from the open-source community.
I don't care wether you do or don't, but I certainly don't want to touch software written by someone that can't actually decide wether they do or do not like licences. Here - have some garlic, just incase :P
- -- Brett Parker web: http://www.sommitrealweird.co.uk/ email: iDunno@sommitrealweird.co.uk
On Sunday 06 November 2005 15:13, Brett Parker wrote:
Right - so why the hell say you don't care about them, then... Would you please stop being so damned flippant and actually say what you mean?
OK, I didn't mean I didn't care about licensing, I meant I don't care what form the license takes as long as it entitles me to use the software in the way that I require.
Nice, direct attack. Love it. I'm a moron because you can't actually say what you mean. typical closed source developer mentality at work there.
You're just a zealot. You may as well have said "typical Jew who has a hook nose".
Just because I write closed-source software doesn't mean I'm some kind of vampire who steals from the open-source community.
I don't care wether you do or don't, but I certainly don't want to touch software written by someone that can't actually decide wether they do or do not like licences. Here - have some garlic, just incase :P
I suspect you've already used some of my software somewhere, you just don't know it - for example if you've ever had to fill in an online planning application to your local council. I don't write desktop applications.
Matt
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Matt Parker matt@mpcontracting.co.uk wrote:
On Sunday 06 November 2005 15:13, Brett Parker wrote:
Right - so why the hell say you don't care about them, then... Would you please stop being so damned flippant and actually say what you mean?
OK, I didn't mean I didn't care about licensing, I meant I don't care what form the license takes as long as it entitles me to use the software in the way that I require.
Right.
Nice, direct attack. Love it. I'm a moron because you can't actually say what you mean. typical closed source developer mentality at work there.
You're just a zealot. You may as well have said "typical Jew who has a hook nose".
I'm not a zealot, I work for a company that is currently developing a closed source search product. I just like for the tools that I use to be licenced in a way that actually allows me to reuse them, and that fits with what our developers need. But hey, you appear to have the opinion that any one that actually carefully checks that a licence fits the purpose that is required is a zealot. Congratulations.
Just because I write closed-source software doesn't mean I'm some kind of vampire who steals from the open-source community.
I don't care wether you do or don't, but I certainly don't want to touch software written by someone that can't actually decide wether they do or do not like licences. Here - have some garlic, just incase :P
I suspect you've already used some of my software somewhere, you just don't know it - for example if you've ever had to fill in an online planning application to your local council. I don't write desktop applications.
Oh, because I've filled in so many of those... or rather - no, I haven't. Infact, unless you've written in such a way that my browser does not require flash, java, or any of those other annoying restrictions to my productivity, it's very unlikely that I ever will. If it's just a cgi - then where's the advantage of saying it's closed source?
This is starting to bore the hell out of me, it's quite obvious that you just don't get it and that you want to argue to the death.
Have a nice life, maybe you could get on with some of that work that you mentioned in the first post? - -- Brett Parker web: http://www.sommitrealweird.co.uk/ email: iDunno@sommitrealweird.co.uk
On Sunday 06 November 2005 15:39, Brett Parker wrote:
This is starting to bore the hell out of me, it's quite obvious that you just don't get it and that you want to argue to the death.
Have a nice life, maybe you could get on with some of that work that you mentioned in the first post?
Compare and contrast the other response to my post by Jonathan McDowell and your initial response and see who is the argumentative one.
Matt
The message 200511061547.46408.matt@mpcontracting.co.uk from Matt Parker matt@mpcontracting.co.uk contains these words:
Compare and contrast the other response to my post by Jonathan McDowell and your initial response and see who is the argumentative one.
Back in the days when the world was young, and so was I, I lived in a Scout hostel in the East End of London. Scouting is very much like Linux - it has to be done the right way, and for some, there is no room for differences of opinion.
We will call the acters in this scene George and Bill, mainly because those were their names. Now it happened that George, who was a resident, and Bill, who was not, were practical jokers par excellence, and I shouldn't think there was anyone at Roland House who didn't have a score to settle, and I was certainly not the exception.
I happened on George and Bill one evening after supper. They were in the kitchen, and chatting about this and that.
Enter the Demon King(let).
George and Bill held diametrically opposite views about capitation, the main source of income sor the (then) Boy Scouts' Association, and I spied my chance. Somehow, I worked capitation into the conversation, and after making sure that much heat and very little light was being generated, I slipped away and repaired to my room. There I had an ancient Reporter wind-up tape recorder. I took this to the dining room and placed it in the dumb waiter and quietly lowered it to the kitchen.
The next day I played it back - well, enough of it for it to register that they'd been had - the tape ran out long before they'd finished.
Now, really, I didn't start this on purpose, honest.
However, I'll bear its possibilities in mind for a future occasion...
The message 3130303032303038436E1B75.00@zetnet.co.uk from Anthony Anson tony.anson@zetnet.co.uk contains these words:
We will call the acters in this scene George and Bill
Oops! No editing, no use of speelcheque...
Totally unrelated to this thread, but is your clock wrong ?
I only ask because your new posts seem to be appearing below posts I have already read, or maybe it's post hangover fuzziness my end.
On Sun, 2005-11-06 at 18:01 +0000, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
Totally unrelated to this thread, but is your clock wrong ?
I only ask because your new posts seem to be appearing below posts I have already read, or maybe it's post hangover fuzziness my end.
In my fuzzy state I forgot to say who this was directed to, It's Anthony's posts that seem to be appearing after their timestamp suggests.
I think I'll ban myself from the keyboard now until I have completely recovered from last nights drinking binge :-)
On 06-Nov-05 Wayne Stallwood wrote:
On Sun, 2005-11-06 at 18:01 +0000, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
Totally unrelated to this thread, but is your clock wrong ?
I only ask because your new posts seem to be appearing below posts I have already read, or maybe it's post hangover fuzziness my end.
In my fuzzy state I forgot to say who this was directed to, It's Anthony's posts that seem to be appearing after their timestamp suggests.
Anthony is on Azores time, though his computer thinks it's GMT:
Received: from tony.anson@zetnet.co.uk by wilma.zetnet.co.uk with ZetMail (Exim 4.34) id 1EYoWo-0004Ft-48 for main@lists.alug.org.uk; Sun, 06 Nov 2005 17:42:02 +0000
Date: Sun, 6 Nov 2005 15:40:35 GMT
Ted.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 06-Nov-05 Time: 18:46:00 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
The message XFMail.051106184605.Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk from (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk contains these words:
Anthony is on Azores time, though his computer thinks it's GMT:
Odd - the computer thinks it's Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London, but the clock is now two hours slow. Off to adjust. Either something's borked the clock, or the battery's on the way out. I shall watch it.
On Sun, 2005-11-06 at 23:09 +0000, Anthony Anson wrote:
The message XFMail.051106184605.Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk from (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk contains these words:
Anthony is on Azores time, though his computer thinks it's GMT:
Odd - the computer thinks it's Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London, but the clock is now two hours slow. Off to adjust. Either something's borked the clock, or the battery's on the way out. I shall watch it.
On 2.4 kernels there used to be something in /proc that seemed to know the CMOS battery status. I have never been able to find it on 2.6. It wasn't an lmsensors thing (as I have never had that working on any of my machines)
I do remember getting a machine into a state where it thought the BIOS time was a different timezone to the system time and kept adding or subtracting hours from the bios time to set the system clock....maybe that's what has happened to you.
The message 1131324658.3072.305.camel@localhost.localdomain from Wayne Stallwood ALUGlist@digimatic.plus.com contains these words:
/snip/
I do remember getting a machine into a state where it thought the BIOS time was a different timezone to the system time and kept adding or subtracting hours from the bios time to set the system clock....maybe that's what has happened to you.
No, don't think so - it's the other way round - time-zone right, clock wrong.
The message 1131300391.3072.274.camel@localhost.localdomain from Wayne Stallwood ALUGlist@digimatic.plus.com contains these words:
In my fuzzy state I forgot to say who this was directed to, It's Anthony's posts that seem to be appearing after their timestamp suggests.
No, clock is checked against the server. The time stamp in the body is not necessarily the time the internet connection was made, but you'll find that in the header.
Was my first reaction.
However, looking, I find that something has set the time back a couple of hours. The only things I've added and run recently are AVG (not the firewall) and Rootkitrevealer.
Thanks for alerting me.
Peace at last from the Parker Brothers.
Matt Parker, Brett Parker wrote:
main@lists.alug.org.uk http://www.alug.org.uk/ http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above!
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Nick Atkins nicka@northtrack.net wrote:
Peace at last from the Parker Brothers.
Erm - please, I wouldn't let him in to my (rather large) family!
Cheers, - -- Brett Parker web: http://www.sommitrealweird.co.uk/ email: iDunno@sommitrealweird.co.uk
Matt Parker matt@mpcontracting.co.uk
OK, I didn't mean I didn't care about licensing, I meant I don't care what form the license takes as long as it entitles me to use the software in the way that I require.
IIRC, the Sun JDK's licence requires distributors to indemnify Sun and give them other narny powers. It doesn't entitle debian to use the software in the way we require. I think you should support debian's action and also support the efforts to create real, public standards for Java, led by the likes of Kaffee and Classpath.
Most of the time, debian is trying to ship stuff that can be maintained properly for as long as it's used, even if the original author falls off the planet. There are subplots to follow basic common standards and try to avoid wasted work, but this is all good real-world pragmatism for a volunteer distribution. If you want proprietary software on your debian system, look to the proprietor to support it. They're the ones controlling it, after all.
[...]
I suspect you've already used some of my software somewhere, you just don't know it - for example if you've ever had to fill in an online planning application to your local council. I don't write desktop applications.
If you are IN ANY WAY involved with the HORRIBLE "best viewed using Internet Explorer version 5.5" PublicAccess planning system, you had better stay well out of my way at ALUG meets!
It amazes me that anyone dare deploy an online planning app which is harder to use than the paper listings, but Norfolk e-Government is a SHAMBLES, as far as I've seen so far. It's not just incompatible with free software browsers - it doesn't work well on the library web terminals either!
I am annoyed that my tax money is spent so badly!
Brett Parker wrote:
*YAWN* - because it's *SOOO* hard to do the following: [magic hand waving to install jdk 1.5 deleted]
As others have pointed out, finding out the up-to-date/working/official way to do that is not trivial.
I had to deal with this too when installing Ubuntu on my thinkpad last week. I eventually found https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JavaPackageBuildNewVersions which has some instructions for creating and installing a package, and then found https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Java?action=show&redirect=AddingJavaSupport which then tells you what to do to use it. Yes, it worked, but it was cumbersome and time consuming.
Have you actually got a solution to the problem [of package managers dealing with license-restricted downloads]
Gentoo has a solution to this problem; portage prints very specific instructions, which are up-to-date, working and official: Download "this file" from "here", put it "there". See appended example. follow the instructions, re-run emerge, and the install completes, and tells you what to do to start using it. Easy and quick.
-- Martijn
emerge (1 of 1) dev-java/sun-jdk-1.5.0.05 to /
!!! jdk-1_5_0_05-linux-i586.bin not found in /usr/portage/distfiles
!!! dev-java/sun-jdk-1.5.0.05 has fetch restriction turned on. !!! This probably means that this ebuild's files must be downloaded !!! manually. See the comments in the ebuild for more information.
* Please download jdk-1_5_0_05-linux-i586.bin from: * http://javashoplm.sun.com/ECom/docs/Welcome.jsp?StoreId=22&PartDetailId=... * Select the Linux self-extracting file * and move it to /usr/portage/distfiles
and then after then install:
* After installing sun-jdk-1.5.0.05 this * was set as the default JVM to run. * When finished please run the following so your * enviroment gets updated. * /usr/sbin/env-update && source /etc/profile * Or use java-config program to set your preferred VM
On Sun, Nov 06, 2005 at 01:41:29PM +0000, Matt Parker wrote:
Well apart from the fact that they are missing large amounts of software from their standard distribution. Admittedly this software is of the non-Free variety, but in the real world it is often necessary to use such software.
I can never use Debian due to the zealotry of it's developers in this regard.
Debian are largely concerned about producing a technically sound distribution that can be used by *anyone* for *anything* they choose. It's largely accepted that it's unfortunate this rules out certain bits of useful software (you mention Java later; there are efforts to produce Free implementations and java-package for easily producing a Debian style package of the non-free versions). However the advantage is that no matter who you are (use, developer, custom distro producer) you can pick up Debian main and just use it.
J.