Re: [aclug-L] Debian and package source?

[John Goerzen <jgoerzen@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Troy Wolf" <troy@xxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> And now, deep thoughts, by Troy Wolf . . .

<grin>

[ cut ppp/RH horror story ]

> You know, as much as I love the power, stability, and
> *possibilities* with Linux.  I can't blame those people who use
> Microsoft Products.  Not everybody has a month to spend learning
> every new process.  There are people who have more money than
> time--I've got neither.  (go ahead, flame on)

Well, I know that this may be risky to say as there are definately
people that disagree with me on the subject, but here goes anyway.
RedHat is great for people new to Linux that want to get a basic
workstation or common server up and running without learning a lot
about the underlying OS.  HOWEVER, if you want to do something not
"common", or to be able to really tweak things at a low level, you
want Debian.

Having said that, I am surprised that the ppp in RedHat is that
stubborn; on the other hand, the graphical RedHat tools, and lately,
Linuxconf, have been known to interfere with people when they want to
do something that those tools don't explicitly understand (such as
what you're doing now). 

Further note that there are a lot of things possible with Linux that
simply are not possible with Windows.  And, those with more money than 
time can simply hire a consultant to install Linux -- it will often
end up cheaper than NT anyway.  Purchasing a full-fledged NT server
can run into the tens of thousands of dollars.  Hiring a consultant to 
install Linux should cost less than 1/10 of that.

After saying all that, also note that part of what ACLUG is here for
is to help people learn what's going on behind the systems -- that
way, people have the knowledge to fix or set up their own systems.
Granted, sometimes you hit things that we simply haven't messed with
-- like IPX -- but we try.

<soapbox mode off>


> directory.  To build a .deb out of the source, run:
> 
> dpkg-buildpackage -B -us -uc -rfakeroot
> 
> This process requires that you install the dpkg-dev, gcc, libc6-dev,
> fakeroot, binutils, debhelper, etc. packages.
> 
> 
> Troy Wolf: WOW! That sounds terrible.  (I don't have any Debian
> CDs--did it all from the net) 3 packages?  This process makes rpms
> sound really nice.  Isn't simply downloading a single standard tar
> and unzipping it easier?.  I assume I don't understand what building
> a .deb does for me.

It sounds tougher than it really is!  You can just do this:

wget ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/source/base/ppp_*
dpkg-source -x ppp_*dsc
cd ppp-*
dpkg-buildpackage -B -rfakeroot -us -uc

That's it.  You've just compiled your own copy of it.

I'm sure those of you with cunning minds are mentally writing shell
scripts to do this already :-)

I assumed that the reason that you wanted the source is so that you
can compile your own version.  If you want to to that, it's nice to be 
able to have it in the convenient .deb form, which will then integrate 
your own changes into the package manager.

Also note that these files aren't larger than the source RPMs; they're 
just packaged differently.  In this way, people not on Debian systems
can easily use the sources as well; that is a weakness of the source
RPM format.

> John Goerzen:
> I'm not aware of any Linux games that use IPX.  Linux uses TCP/IP as
> its native protocol, and I don't think that any Linux coders have seen 
> fit to code otherwise with respect to games.
> 
> Troy Wolf:
> I guess I was referring to Windows & Dos games.  Many of them were (are) IPX. 
>  I was assuming many people have heterogenous networks with (heaven forbid) 
> Windoze AND Linux.

Right, I understand.  However, those IPX games are generally non-free
ones, so ports to Linux are not possible unless the vendor supports
them.  And no vendors really supported Linux until after TCP became
popular on Windows platforms, so that's why there are no IPX games for 
Linux.

-- 
John Goerzen   Linux, Unix consulting & programming   jgoerzen@xxxxxxxxxxxx |
Developer, Debian GNU/Linux (Free powerful OS upgrade)       www.debian.org |
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