[geeks] RedHat restructure

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

On Fri, Nov 07, 2003 at 03:37:49PM -0500, Kevin wrote:

> This is very true, but IMHO, that means it is time to use a system
> which implements this (and has for some time) such as Debian or Red
> Hat.  

There are several reasons to use Slackware besides the package system.

> I would like to keep Slackware the way it is, 

I would like to see it improve, myself.

Besides, nothing I suggested would change it from your point of view.

You don't want new features?  Fine, don't use them.  Note that my
suggestion was for advisory features.

> and although i haven't done any market research on it, my suspicion is
> that the majority of Slackware users are of like mind.  

I have used Slackware for 10 years, from the very first SLS releases,
and haven't found the package system to be the primary reason for using
it.

The philosophy I know about, if there is one, is on qualities like this:

* less SysV /etc mess than others, more BSD like
* packages have saner build parameters
* it is easy to make a small system with fewer dependencies
* the system is well tested, fixes are rarely a problem
* as few changes as possible to the original software, just enough to
  fit it into Slackware

Most users do like the simplicity and functionality of the Slackware
system, but a great many of them over the years have rightly
complained about its faults:

* no file manifest for each package (doinstall.sh actions make the
  ones in /var/log/packages inaccurate)
* no dependency information
* poor versioning (largely fixed now)
* limited description system
* one of the worst source build systems in the UNIX world
* cruft often left behind as packages are removed (much of this
  seems to be fixed now)

I really like Slackware, but can't ignore the problems it has.  That
just doesn't make sense.

A few changes to the package system could be done which would fix most
of the above, and people like you might not even notice they were there.

Well, except that you might be able to finally do a build world on
Slackware, which would be amazingly cool to me.




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