From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Oct 2 12:07:18 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 90D1B16A4B3 for ; Thu, 2 Oct 2003 12:07:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mrout1.yahoo.com (mrout1.yahoo.com [216.145.54.171]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E267043FF7 for ; Thu, 2 Oct 2003 12:07:17 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from steffl@bigfoot.com) Received: from bigfoot.com (woodpecker.corp.yahoo.com [207.126.234.69]) h92J73rO044294 for ; Thu, 2 Oct 2003 12:07:03 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <3F7C7757.9020006@bigfoot.com> Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2003 12:07:03 -0700 From: Erik Steffl User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i386; en-US; rv:1.3) Gecko/20030312 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "FreeBSD-Questions (Request)" References: <200310021459.h92Exhbn017254@clunix.cl.msu.edu> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: FreeBSD vs. RedHat X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2003 19:07:18 -0000 SoloCDM wrote: ... > When RedHat started out, it had some conveniences, but it quickly > become so bizarre and discombobulated that I am feed-up, a voodoo act > and standing on one's head is involved. Most of the so-called-experts > in RPMs don't know what they're doing from one minute to the next. > Usually installing the tarball (my form of description) is the only > available option. > > So many of the RPM distributors are inventing and reinventing new ways > to reroute the file to its original location. Often the files go > through 6 links before you capture the original file. That doesn't > include the original program from recognizing other renamed filenames > that produce optional executions. This usually keeps some of the RPM > installations from installing, *unless*, all the rubble is ripped out > before you start. Often that *breaks* the whole structure/hierarchy > apart. > > Now distributors have moved to an option that supposedly entices > enterprises. Usually it forces the installations to conform to their > type of networking. [conform to their type of networking? what do you mean?] there is LSB (http://www.linuxbase.org/) and FHS (http://www.pathname.com/fhs/) to help to solve these problems. I think it's getting better. you'd be better with other distros though - debian (packages dependencies etc. are maintained, you can upgrade across major version fairly easily (I already went through 3 major version, IIRC, with same system)) or slackware (very minimalistic and clean, you pretty much manage everything yourself (this might not be true anymore, I didn't use it for quite some time)) still, and this is pretty much for all unix(like) systems - install the packages that are part of the distribution only. Anything third party install in /opt/name-version (preferably from source) and create links as appropriate (stow is a great help). That's the only way to keep the system manageable, whether it's redhat or freeBSD. erik