Re: GNU/Linux distro wars

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

"Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca> writes:

> 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!

Far from discouraging me, your post prompted me to expedite my
packaging of XML/Ada.  So there.  It's now on my repository at
http://www.ada-france.org/debian and waiting for a sponsor.  See, I'm
not an official Debian developer yet.  There is a lengthy screening
process before anyone is coopted.

> 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).

The latest stable version of Debian is 17 months old and counting; the
version of gnat in it is 3.14p.  My package for gnat 3.15p is in
unstable.  Due to some dependency problems, it is currently waiting to
go into testing.  The dependencies are libgtkada1 and gvd; promoting
gnat to testing would make them uninstallable.  I am in touch with the
maintainers to resolve this issue.  BTW, does Gentoo have such a
process for ensuring that the next stable version has as few
dependency problems as possible?

> 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.

Exactly; this is why I chose Debian over Gentoo.  Debian is the ideal
target platform for anyone developing software.  It is rich, reliable,
does not change too often (moving target syndrome), and very easy to
administer for your customers, even in large-scale deployments.

> 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.

My sponsor for Debian is one of the maintainers of gnat-3.2 and -3.3,
so I won't bad-mouth it too much here.  I have not tried the ACATS
tests against 3.3, but I see that ACT have added them to the mainline
for inclusion in 3.4.

gnat-3.2 is there on all 11 platforms, but has received little testing
and has many bugs.  gnat-3.3 is there on all platforms except MIPS,
and still has some bugs.  One is that it doesn't provide a shared
libgnat.  Then there is trusty old gnat 3.15p, which is only available
on 3 platforms (i386, sparc and powerpc) but offers reliablity and
shared libraries.  Several other packages rely on 3.15p; none on
either 3.2 or 3.3.

> 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.

Furthermore, I note that the Gentoo ebuild for GPS is (a) out of date
since it pertains to 1.2.2, and (b) relies on the upstream binary
distribution from ACT, which only exists on i386 and is
binary-incompatible with everything else since it was built with a
recent GNAT Pro not available to the public.  My Debian package is
built from source using GNAT 3.15p on three platforms (i386, powerpc
and sparc), links dynamically against libgnat and libgtkada2, has
manual pages, and is up to date (1.4.0).  I've boasted about it enough
now :)

> 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 ;-)

Yes, but you're an individual developer.  I'm an individual developer,
too, and I have recompiled my own packages several times, but I also
appreciate the fact that Debian offers a reliable target platform for
software, and solves distribution issues for corporations as well as
for individuals.

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

Now Sam Tardieu might not like that.  He is the former maintainer of
several Ada packages for Debian, and he switched to FreeBSD where he
maintains gnat among others.

> 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?

Definitely, yes.  In fact, I have already done preliminary work to
package APQ 2.1 for Debian, but found problems in the way you generate
code from MySQL.  OTOH, I've promised not to overtax my sponsor with
too many new packages until Sarge is released.  So I'll just take a
vacation and we'll talk more about it next year.

Cheers

PS. I'm leaving to spend christmas and the new year in Lyon tomorrow
morning.  I probably won't be online often until I return on Jan 2.
So, have a merry christmas and a happy new year y'all!

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.