If a package isn’t up to date, why not make one that is up to date?

You mention that getting the latest version requires you to go to the site and download it. But you can also do this with DEB, there is no need to use the centralised system (apt-get / synapic). dpkg provides all the functionality of rpm. apt-get I believe is also similar to yum, but I’ve never used yum so I couldn’t comment on it.

My quick googling with Bing suggests that Debian, and consequently Ubuntu, should have such a method, while CentOS may have concerns that revealing how they build their packages may harm their user base. If so, this would be the key difference between Ubuntu and CentOS, much more important than the size of the repository.

Anyway, I cannot understand how that many posts do not contain the word “compile”.

My main desktop (e. g. the one I’m installing for clients) has been a highly customized mix of CentOS and Fedora since 2006; currently based on the latest 5.3. Sensible differences between the distributions:

a) quality control
b) quality control
c) quality control

One word concerning the popular urban myth apt-is-better-than-rpm. If you’re really into comparing things, you should compare dpkg and rpm. These handle the packages. Otherwise, be true to the respective tools and compare the dependency resolvers, e. g. Yum and APT. (Or apt and apt, as apt also exists as a frontend for rpm…).

Been using Debian since Potato and CentOS since 4.2. There’s not a single thing APT does that Yum won’t do. Plus, it does some other things that APT won’t do.

Oh, as for the repos. I draw all my stuff from the CentOS, Extras and RPMForge repos. The ten or so missing packages (exotic stuff I need for work), I just build them myself and put them in my own private repo.

Cheers from the sunny South of France.

Kiki Novak

You assumption that 6,000 is better than 70,000 could only be supported if nobody or only a few use 64,000 packages, but as the comments to this blog show a lot of people use more packages than the 6,000 in centos. And yes I use Centos and use RPMforge and DAG and other places to get the packages. With Ubuntu is one stop most of the time.

I must correct you. I am merely thinking aloud about advantages of smaller repositories.

I am wondering though, why you are working with CentOS and not with Ubuntu?

In response to the first issue, outdate packages, I don’t think a package should ever been removed from a repository. A filter in synaptic (or your tool of choice) might be a good solution thought to filter out the obsolete or unmaintained packages.

This is impossible from technical reasons. Also, the real issue here is not about packages being removed, but rather when packages are created.

As for the second, I really like the Debian multitiered approach. Stable may be up to 2 years out of date, but you can depend on nothing but the absolute most rock solid system possible. I would use nothing less for a server. They they still do have the security updates, so it’s not completely untouched. As you move up, you get newer, but potentionally more buggy software. For example, Firefox 3.5 was in Debian experimental the week it was released, which I think is pretty good.

One distro that I didn’t work with yet is Debian. Perhaps I’ll take this endeavor some time soon.

The size of the package repository is only one of many factors to look at for any distribution.

If a distribution tries to keep more up to date, there is going to be a trade of on the stability side.

If stability is the goal, then release cycles are longer and software not as up to date.

Stability in this case meaning minimal updates necessary to fix security issues and important bugs and avoiding as much as possible anything that will change behavior.

With Ubuntu you have a short list of packages that are supported by Canonical and get priority treatment, outside of that you have to largely rely on the community.

Then you get into the priorities and capabilities of the individual maintainers or teams of maintainers depending on the packages in question and also how the software is maintained by the upstream and how that fits with the goals of the mainatiners/distribution.

Later, Seeker

It’s just so nice to do a random search and find that you have a working install 2 clicks away vs. 2 hrs away.

<3 synaptic <3

-multiboot