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DUR: The Debian User Repository

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Re: DUR: The Debian User Repository

#51

Post by bscphil »

zxzax wrote: post #7
bscphil wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The difficulty of figuring out exactly what you need to do is part of the problem. It's hard to shake the feeling that you don't really grok the build system.

But in any case it's never been as easy as just running that one command for me. Actual example from my bash history:

    $ apt source packagename
    $ vim path/to/broken/file.c
    $ dpkg-buildpackage
Now I get an error: "aborting due to unexpected upstream changes".

    $ dpkg-source --commit
Make a changelog entry for the changes you made

    $ dpkg-buildpackage
This fails with an inscrutable error "dpkg-buildpackage: error: failed to sign .dsc file"

If you know what you're doing you realize that you can just ignore this error, it doesn't affect the built package. If you don't, you have to search around and then build it again with

    $ dpkg-buildpackage -uc
So it's not, like, the worst thing in the world but it doesn't go out of its way to be intuitive either. It's hard to find good help on what to do (the man pages are arguably too detailed to be useful to people who just want to make small changes), and hopefully you didn't follow a rabbit trail with debuild.

Re: DUR: The Debian User Repository

#52

Post by jeromenerf »

If I was asked how a Linux distribution and package management should work, I would probably describe something very different to Debian, because of all the bureaucracy involved, yet I have been happily using Debian for everything for more than 20 years.

Re: DUR: The Debian User Repository

#53

Post by bscphil »

kijin wrote: post #23
throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the whole, Debian administration is a lot more complicated than on Arch because of the relative complexity of the architecture. This should be expected though. Debian has been around a lot longer and is depended on by more of the Linux world. Complexity is a natural outcome of more stakeholder requirements (more stakeholders = more requirements = more complexity). I won't get into the systemd holy war, but suffi…

It's okay to ride a bicycle instead of a car, or vice versa. It's not okay to put bicycle tires on a car, or a car transmission on a bicycle. I have no complaints about distros that are either 100% systemd or 100% init scripts. The problem with Debian (and its derivatives) is that they're trying to maintain both at the same time. If they really want to support both "/etc/init.d/servicename start" and "systemctl start…

> I have no complaints about distros that are either 100% systemd or 100% init scripts. The problem with Debian (and its derivatives) is that they're trying to maintain both at the same time.

Well said. I'd add that "service" is actually doubly confusing because the command was IIRC actually introduced by Ubuntu when they were doing Upstart, which was their own attempt an an init replacement. Ubuntu still has the service command, actually, and now it supposedly runs both init scripts and systemd units. I've never actually tried it because I'm rather spooked by having multiple mechanisms to activate a service. It still mostly has the upstart command syntax from what I can recall.

My Ubuntu server actually has a Upstart service file from one of the daemons I have installed, I only hope it's not somehow being activated or translated into an init script by some compatibility system Ubuntu has built in.

You might even be talking about RHEL 6, in which they used Upstart, and not whatever they're doing now. RHEL 6 is still under extended support, which means that there are still quite a lot of Upstart systems out there.

Re: DUR: The Debian User Repository

#54

Post by christophilus »

brainless wrote: post #4

Nice 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…

I’ve only just started running Arch. One thing I don’t understand is the AUR security model. Aren’t you running arbitrary code / binaries built by some stranger on the interwebs on your machine? This is my biggest hesitation, and why I haven’t used AUR.

Re: DUR: The Debian User Repository

#55

Post by AussieWog93 »

TheFreim wrote: post #49
AussieWog93 wrote: post #10

Linux 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.

Linux does need more package managers. Why? Because I like trying out new package managers and they don't harm people since they're not required to try or use them.

>they don't harm people since they're not required to try or use them

For users, no. For devs, there absolutely is pressure to support and maintain multiple distribution methods for Linux users.

Re: DUR: The Debian User Repository

#56

Post by kijin »

andrewshadura wrote: post #48
kijin wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of debian packages supply both systemd unit files and init scripts. You can use either to step on the other's foot.

As I said, init scripts are only used if there's no unit file. If there's a systemd unit, the init script is ignored.

If there's a systemd unit, the init script is redundant, confusing, and possibly dangerous. It should not exist in the first place, perhaps except as a thin wrapper around the corresponding systemd command.

Re: DUR: The Debian User Repository

#57

Post by kijin »

bscphil wrote: post #53
kijin wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's okay to ride a bicycle instead of a car, or vice versa. It's not okay to put bicycle tires on a car, or a car transmission on a bicycle. I have no complaints about distros that are either 100% systemd or 100% init scripts. The problem with Debian (and its derivatives) is that they're trying to maintain both at the same time. If they really want to support both "/etc/init.d/servicename start" and "systemctl start…

> I have no complaints about distros that are either 100% systemd or 100% init scripts. The problem with Debian (and its derivatives) is that they're trying to maintain both at the same time. Well said. I'd add that "service" is actually doubly confusing because the command was IIRC actually introduced by Ubuntu when they were doing Upstart, which was their own attempt an an init replacement. Ubuntu still has the ser…

I was actually talking about RHEL 7, which uses systemd. When you type "service foo restart", it redirects to "systemctl restart foo.service" and prints a message saying so. It's a nice way to nudge people to use the new command without being obtuse, redundant, or confusing.

Re: DUR: The Debian User Repository

#58

Post by TheFreim »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #55
TheFreim wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux does need more package managers. Why? Because I like trying out new package managers and they don't harm people since they're not required to try or use them.

>they don't harm people since they're not required to try or use them For users, no. For devs, there absolutely is pressure to support and maintain multiple distribution methods for Linux users.

That's a good point.

Re: DUR: The Debian User Repository

#59

Post by nextlevelwizard »

bscphil wrote: post #2

I'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…

This is off-topic, but the reason why I stay away from Arch is that it has not once, but twice, just fucked itself from right under me.

First time around I was just getting up and running and as I installed python3 there was some mismatch between some very core libraries and I couldn't roll back since the library in question wasn't available anywhere, but python3 package (or something that came along with it) was linked against the old one. Only "work around" I found was to symlink the current lib to the old's path.

Second time I just just running bog standard fetch & update. Then I rebooted as is normal after you update and it no longer booted.

Arch is fine hobbyist distro and you for sure have to live on he edge, but I wouldn't use it for anything you expect to be able to use every day at a moments notice.

Re: DUR: The Debian User Repository

#60

Post by aftergibson »

nextlevelwizard wrote: post #59
bscphil wrote: post #2

I'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…

This is off-topic, but the reason why I stay away from Arch is that it has not once, but twice, just fucked itself from right under me. First time around I was just getting up and running and as I installed python3 there was some mismatch between some very core libraries and I couldn't roll back since the library in question wasn't available anywhere, but python3 package (or something that came along with it) was lin…

Same thing for myself, I really enjoyed the learning experience from Arch, but one day I updated my distro and after a reboot the entire thing became unbootable.

Undeterred, I downloaded the latest ISO of Arch, reinstalled and updated it. Again unbootable. So rather than provide a working latest ISO that resolved a breaking glibc change they had introduced, there was a poorly communicated and (what I considered) fairly unclear set steps to upgrade the OS. I gave them a go, still broke.

I wasn't even that mad, but at that point I realised it just wasn't the OS for me.

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