GNU/Linux distro wars (was: SYSAPI and SYSSVC for Windows)

[Ludovic Brenta <ludovic.brenta@insalien.org>]

"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.

[...]
> 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 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

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.
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.

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.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.