Debian: Broken packages, bug

[Russell Reiter]

<snip previous>
> Aptitude is great, but it's not a panacea for problems. It's just
>> another tool in the toolbox.
>>
>
> This I totally disagree with. I used to hack away at solving problems,
> building things from source and hand-editing config files, and so on.

Twelve or so years ago CLUE chose Debian to pair down for use on
486's, which were to be given out to low income people, precisely
because of aptitude. We got computers donated to agencies and some low
income individuals. Like FreeGeek does now. I still support people
using much older equipment and who come from the MS world with little
troubleshooting experience even on the platform they are familiar
with.

When what happend to you, happens to them I generally but not always
have to backport stuff. Assistive technologies notwithstanding, the
demands of video and audio streaming have always been troublesome.

I help people to use Linux, in part to keep legacy equipment from the landfill.

> I have been running Debian for a few years now, and I have never had
> to build anything from source. Debian Unstable is as up to date as I
> could possibly want, and apt never fails, ever. The only reason I had
> a problem this time was I ignored something apt was telling me that
> was clearly going to be a problem, or at least had a high risk of
> becoming one. Otherwise, this system has been through update after
> update, even dist upgrades, and never once had a problem.

I find their repository catalogue a little cumbersome. I work on lots
of different hardware configurations and I invariably wind up
downloading stuff and using dpkg to install and in the most severe
cases, make from source. Most recently with the adoption of pulse
audio into Debian, backporting alsa with some legacy sound and video
and capture cards.

> I no longer have the time to spend on making my system some highly
> customized and optimized thing, I just want it to work. I really can't
> imagine using anything else but Debian. With due respect to all the
> very knowledgeable RH, Ubuntu, and Gentoo users, I don't understand
> the reasoning behind using any other distribution, other than just
> taste I guess.

Different features and different bugs. In Mini-Deb we used aptitude to
install rpm's, go figure that.

> --
> Thomas Milne
> --
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