DUR: The Debian User Repository
dur.hunterwittenborn.com
DUR: The Debian User Repository
1–10 of 103 posts
Re: DUR: The Debian User Repository
#2I'm excited to see someone is working on this. I have considered switching from Arch to Sid in the past, mainly so that I could run the same OS on all computers and because I like the DFSG. Two things have stopped me:
* It's so much harder to build your own software packages on Debian. Even patching an existing Debian package can be painful, and having to write your own packages is even worse. I'm sure a dedicated enough user can learn to use the Debian packaging software proficiently, but it's a huge barrier to entry when I have something as easy as Arch's PKGBUILD syntax at my disposal. It looks like this project is interested in solving this problem: rather than using Debian's packaging tools for the DUR, it actually appears to literally be using makepkg with a Debian conversion script running on top. [1]
* The systemd integration is currently quite bad. It's probably the source of a bunch of user complaints about systemd. Debian's systemd install currently still supports [2] and uses init scripts and update-rc.d, the very thing unit files were supposed to take us beyond. In fact, a pretty minimal Debian installation I have on a server has 14 init scripts, while my Arch install doesn't even have an /etc/init.d directory! On the whole, Debian administration is a lot more complicated than on Arch because of the relative complexity of the architecture.
Re: DUR: The Debian User Repository
#3I'm excited to see someone is working on this. I have considered switching from Arch to Sid in the past, mainly so that I could run the same OS on all computers and because I like the DFSG. Two things have stopped me: * It's so much harder to build your own software packages on Debian. Even patching an existing Debian package can be painful, and having to write your own packages is even worse. I'm sure a dedicated en…
>It's so much harder to build your own software packages on Debian. Even patching an existing Debian package can be painful, and having to write your own packages is even worse.
I can't say that's been my experience, once I figured out dh_make [0] that made it pretty easy by handling most of the boilerplate. Building an existing package is as simple as doing `apt source` and then `dpkg-buildpackage` to rebuild it (you may have to do `apt build-dep` first too). I agree with the rest of your comments though.
Edit: I haven't looked into the details of how it works but I would imagine that YMMV with trying to use makepkg that way. The hard part here isn't getting the packages to build, it's in reconciling the library dependencies across all the tens of thousands of packages that make up both distros.
[0]: https://blog.packagecloud.io/eng/2015/07/14/using-dh-make-to...
Re: DUR: The Debian User Repository
#4Nice effort, the Arch User Repository is one of the benefits of the Arch way I feel. I have become so used to simply search "arch aur " or whatever I am looking for, finding it there, git clone and install. I keep installing random userspace software and I do not think AUR let me down.
On a side note, I keep thinking there are so many great ideas spread over the many Linux distributions and not having a single joint effort makes it hard from an adoption point. I love having choice but I would really like more users to be able to use a (any) distribution.
Re: DUR: The Debian User Repository
#5I'm excited to see someone is working on this. I have considered switching from Arch to Sid in the past, mainly so that I could run the same OS on all computers and because I like the DFSG. Two things have stopped me: * It's so much harder to build your own software packages on Debian. Even patching an existing Debian package can be painful, and having to write your own packages is even worse. I'm sure a dedicated en…
I agree, RPM is similarly just as easy amongst others who all sort of stick to a single control file design. This exact DEB ergonomic pain of files all over the place keeps me at arms length, it's clunky (to me) and the build process weirds me out with how many variations on tools used to get the same result. It's backwards compatible as all get go, I'll give you that.
Re: DUR: The Debian User Repository
#6I'm excited to see someone is working on this. I have considered switching from Arch to Sid in the past, mainly so that I could run the same OS on all computers and because I like the DFSG. Two things have stopped me: * It's so much harder to build your own software packages on Debian. Even patching an existing Debian package can be painful, and having to write your own packages is even worse. I'm sure a dedicated en…
>It's so much harder to build your own software packages on Debian. Even patching an existing Debian package can be painful, and having to write your own packages is even worse. I can't say that's been my experience, once I figured out dh_make [0] that made it pretty easy by handling most of the boilerplate. Building an existing package is as simple as doing `apt source` and then `dpkg-buildpackage` to rebuild it (yo…
Yeah, I'm vaguely aware of various wrappers that try to make the process easier, I should probably give those a try. Building an existing package is certainly very easy, but I've had problems trying to download the source, apply a patch, and then rebuild it. In Arch this is just "makepkg -o" then "makepkg -e" after you patch the source.
Re: DUR: The Debian User Repository
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
>It's so much harder to build your own software packages on Debian. Even patching an existing Debian package can be painful, and having to write your own packages is even worse. I can't say that's been my experience, once I figured out dh_make [0] that made it pretty easy by handling most of the boilerplate. Building an existing package is as simple as doing `apt source` and then `dpkg-buildpackage` to rebuild it (yo…
Yeah, I'm vaguely aware of various wrappers that try to make the process easier, I should probably give those a try. Building an existing package is certainly very easy, but I've had problems trying to download the source, apply a patch, and then rebuild it. In Arch this is just "makepkg -o" then "makepkg -e" after you patch the source.
Really? For me it's literally just `dpkg-buildpackage` after patching the source. I never had any problems with it.
Re: DUR: The Debian User Repository
#8Took a while to work out what this was - nice intro at https://docs.hunterwittenborn.com/makedeb/debian-user-reposi....
Re: DUR: The Debian User Repository
#9Nice effort, the Arch User Repository is one of the benefits of the Arch way I feel. I have become so used to simply search "arch aur " or whatever I am looking for, finding it there, git clone and install. I keep installing random userspace software and I do not think AUR let me down. On a side note, I keep thinking there are so many great ideas spread over the many Linux distributions and not having a single joint…
If you are think search and git clone are nice, waiting until you find out of AUR helper!
`paru -Syu visual-studio-code-bin`
Re: DUR: The Debian User Repository
#10Linux does not need more package managers. It creates nothing but support burdens and busywork for developers (yes, user repositories too).
I don't understand what people expect to achieve by further fragmenting a minority OS that makes up only 3% of Desktop users.