Re: GNU/Linux distro wars

["Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca>]

Ludovic Brenta wrote:

> "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca> writes:
>>Ludovic Brenta wrote:
>>>"Ekkehard Morgenstern" <ekkehard.morgenstern@onlinehome.de> writes:
>>...
>>>Indeed.  I switched from Red Hat to Debian because the RH distribution
>>>did not contain some packages I wanted, and when I found RPMs from
>>>other distros they would often break things.  Debian is the largest of
>>>all distributions and does not suffer this problem to the same extent,
>>>because most everything I want is just there already.
>>
>>I have been trying out Gentoo lately (www.gentoo.org). They seem to
>>have better Ada packages support than some other distros (this is
>>important if you're time pressed or lazy ;-).
> 
> Now you're insulting me :) I've been packaging Ada software for Debian
> since July this year, and my ambition is to make Debian the best Ada
> platform around.
> 
> [...]

I see the :) but I hope you don't see my post as a discouragement
to your efforts! Debian is a whole lot less work to install,
so I don't think Gentoo will every be everyone's choice. So
in short, keep up the good work!

>>Ada packages support is what coaxed me into trying it. I have a few
>>small issues with it (bugs to report), and some of the Ada packages
>>are not fully bug free yet. But they obviously have plans to fix
>>these at some point. I was impressed to see that they have packaged
>>things like Booch components and the Charles library (as only two
>>examples). They have even packaged the cbind tool, for generating
>>thin Ada bindings from C code.

I haven't checked recently, but I haven't seen a
stable >= GNAT-3.15p release available for Debian
(but I noticed that Gentoo had it).

> I have packaged Charles for Debian, but not the Booch Components.  For
> now I have 7 packages in unstable, and there are other packages
> maintained by other people.  My packages are:
> 
> In unstable: asis, gnat, gnat-doc, gnat-gdb, gnat-glade,
> libflorist-3.15p-1, libgtkada2
> 
> On my repository at ada-france (will be added to unstable shortly):
> gnade, gnat-glade-doc, gnat-gps, libcharles0

I have to say, that on the whole, seeing increased GNAT/Ada
support in Linux is great. Packaged Ada support makes it easier
for others like me that want to share their own packages,
without having to worry about how to teach the end [non-Ada]
users how to install the components that your software may
have dependancies for.

> All of these are available today in binary form.  There are several
> other Ada-related packages in Debian, such as gnat-3.3 (the FSF
> version of GNAT), ada-reference-manual, libgtkada, gvd, and gch.

How is the gcc-3.3 version >= gnat-3.15p in terms of passing
the ACATs tests? I've personally been avoiding the gcc-3.x
series for my own development until it stabilizes more. I
seem to provoke enough bugs in the stable versions of gnat
without using something less stable.

> Also, I have noted some bugs in the Gentoo packages like GPS.  I spend
> a lot of time ensuring the Debian packages are as bug-free as
> possible, and do not hesitate to patch the source code if I have to.

Yes, I had problems with GPS also (it was looking for a libpng shared
library that Gentoo doesn't offer out of the box). Some of their
other packages are still in "bug" status at present.

For the record, I haven't destroyed my debian instances just yet.
Both Debian and Gentoo have their own advantages and disadvantages.
I do however favour the compile everything from sources approach,
which seems to favour Gentoo. But overall, the
jury is still out ;-)

I did a FreeBSD stint for a while (good for firewalls), but
the Ada support there seemed to be on the decline.

> If anyone on this list wishes to package more stuff for Debian, I can
> assist.  However, I am not an official Debian developer yet and I have
> decided no to overtax my sponsor with gazillions of new packages. I
> think I have already packaged most of the important Ada stuff, but if
> you think there is something badly missing I will consider packaging
> it.

I may be using Charles more in the near future, but I still have
projects that use the Booch components (so I see that as being
important to me at least ;-)

If I ever get my next release of APQ out the door (perhaps after
the holiday season winds down), I would like to get APQ packaged
for both Debian and Gentoo. I think APQ represents the most
painless way to work with MySQL or PostgreSQL databases from
Ada (and soon Sybase, where supported). Shall I contact you
directly by email?

-- 
Warren W. Gay VE3WWG
http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg