Back online (partly): meet potatoshift

[sniffnoy]

So instead of getting my computer repaired, I got a new one so I could have a decent keyboard again. (Wondering if that was the best idea, but I'm still finding my way around this one, I guess. Also, this thing seems to run surprisingly hot; and I should have gotten a larger screen, I think. Oh well.)

Thing is running Windows currently. Thinking I'll put Debian on it this time instead of Ubuntu?

I brought the broken one in to Beagle Brain so they could convert the hard drive into an external. That's not done yet, so I don't yet have all my stuff back...

-Harry

Comments

[grenadier32.livejournal.com]

Debian is nice and stable, I just don't like how slowly it updates, and it's really annoying to install software in any way apart from through their repos. I use Arch Linux now, which has an excellent precompiled package manager in combination with an easy means of building and installing your own packages. Of course, you also have to install your desktop environment manually, but that's not too hard (sudo pacman -S gnome or whatever).

[sniffnoy.livejournal.com]

I just don't like how slowly it updates

Go on?

and it's really annoying to install software in any way apart from through their repos.

Can you explain what you mean by this? Like, I don't understand how it is possible for this to be more true than with other distributions. What exactly goes wrong if you try to do it some other way, that wouldn't in another distribution?

Desktop environment... Gnome 3 I didn't like. I was using XFCE but thinking I should switch to KDE, I just never got around to actually taking the hour or so it would take to actually do it. XFCE is mostly good but is still rough around the edges -- you can't ctrl+click for multiselect? Huh? (I assume that was XFCE's fault.) And there's the whole "Is this window maximized or not" bug...

But then, there was a big update for XFCE recently, I know, and I have no idea what that's changed... eh, probably'll just go with KDE. :P

Edit: typos (You know, I don't understand when you can and can't edit comments...)

[grenadier32.livejournal.com]

If you download a piece of software on Debian from its own website and install it with the classic configure-make-install, you get no advantages of package management (managing dependencies is hell), you risk having conflicts with your package manager in the future, and you can't uninstall or upgrade it cleanly.

Arch solves this by making it trivial to write a PKGBUILD script for it, run makepkg, and then pacman -U to install it through the package manager. I do this all the time and it's great. I know Debian has checkinstall, but I've found it to be nowhere near as nice or simple or stable. Plus, pacman is just so much faster. (I know this doesn't seem like a big deal, but I've been using it for awhile and it makes apt look really unwieldy.)

As for GNOME 3, that was just an example. Here's how you install KDE in Arch. There's any number of other options apart from those, including XFCE (the guy who sits next to me at work runs it in Arch).

[sniffnoy.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was just using your example as an opportunity to talk about desktop environments. Obviously "gnome" can be replaced with, well, whatever package.

I'm a little confused with what you say about downloading software from Debian's site -- won't that be true on any distro? If you don't go through the package manager, expect conflicts with the package manager. Are you saying that on Debian I'm going to need to mostly install things that way rather than through the package manager?

[grenadier32.livejournal.com]

Are you saying that on Debian I'm going to need to mostly install things that way rather than through the package manager?

Debian's site? I mean the site of the software itself--in the case of GNOME, GNOME's site. And I'm not saying you'll have to do that often--I'm saying that when you do, and it's been my experience that I do all the time, it'll be a pain in the ass. Arch makes it very easy for me to handle that case. If that's not a problem for you, feel free to completely ignore that as a selling point. :) I haven't used Debian much so I can't tell you how comprehensive its repositories are compared to Ubuntu. All I know is, the Arch solution of central repositories + AUR + my own PKGBUILDs is an excellent solution for me.

No one should use Arch without knowing its design philosophy. I found after years of working with Ubuntu that I need something that doesn't prescribe a user experience (and while Ubuntu is nowhere near as bad as Apple, they focus their development on their own UX, which as far as I'm concerned is not much better).

[sniffnoy.livejournal.com]

Ah, OK. I just usually only install things either 1. through the package manager, or 2. when it's some tiny thing I'm sure will never be a package. Writing my own package scripts doesn't sound like the sort of thing I'd want to do. I suppose you could make it into a package where the only thing that can be done is remove it (in case there's later an official version, so you remove yours to avoid conflicts), but that requires that the thing provide an easy way to uninstall it. And in that case, do you really need to write the script in the first place?

[grenadier32.livejournal.com]

For most software, it's just a matter of filling in the fields in a PKGBUILD. makepkg does the rest. Arch PKGBUILDs look like this:

http://pastebin.com/MeXiLDV9

In any case, I focused too much on the self-compilation thing. Arch is about making it easy to craft your own user experience. I do that; it sounds like you have specific UI needs, and the Linux competence to be able to make good use of what Arch offers. I wouldn't recommend it otherwise. That's really what this comes down to.

[sniffnoy.livejournal.com]

Huh. That doesn't look so bad at all. I'm a little confused as to how that's enough information, honestly.

Yeah I have a pretty specific setup I tend to use; GNOME 3 got in the way of that, XFCE didn't. Except that on recent Ubuntu I couldn't find the extended keyboard settings so I could change what Caps Lock and the Windows key do, so not quite.

[sniffnoy.livejournal.com]

Seriously though, I'm confused as to how that could be enough information. How does it know how to uninstall it, e.g.?

[grenadier32.livejournal.com]

Here's how you'd use this:

1. Write this PKGBUILD.
2. Run makepkg in that directory. It does all these things:
a. Downloads and checksums the sources;
b. Runs build() to compile it;
c. Runs package() to install it to a fake root ($pkgdir, see line 29);
d. Tars up $pkgdir and leaves the resulting package in the same directory.
3. Run pacman -U on the package to install it.

It's no mystery how Pacman uninstalls things: it keeps a list of files in every package in its internal database at /var/lib/pacman. ;)