Debian, Sidux, Ubuntu, reference distributions for Rev

[Andre Garzia]

Peter,

Revolution should be tested against the following distros:

* Ubuntu (number one guy on the desktop right now and if it runs well on
this it should work on debian)
* Fedora (this will make it run on both Red Hat and CentOS)

All the others like Gentoo, Mandriva, SuSe should be community tested but
not worth the company effort (in time and money). Rev should be as self
contained as possible relying less and less on shared libs since each linux
packs them in a different place. This would ensure the requirements were
simple like: glibc something.

It is impossible to create a binary system that runs well on all linux
platforms and desktops. The thing is linked against something, we don't know
if something is available everywhere. For example, Rev uses GTK, KDE users
would rather prefer it using QT. XFCE user will be happy with anything but
big lazy stuff and so on. Its quite hard to distribute binary systems on
linux that why theres a whole ecosystem of auto conf tools so that your
source code is pre processed against hundred tests at build time on the
client machine to make sure you're linking with what is available. Thats why
open source is king on linux, unless you distribute your source with
autoconf tools, there's no guarantee it will run on client machines. Each
linux installation is its own kingdom. Mine is openSUSE 11.2 with tons of
modifications...

Linux is hard...

On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 11:59 AM, Peter Alcibiades <
palcibiades-first at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

>
> Oh dear, Oh dear, Oh dear.  If the best and the brightest here don't
> understand this stuff about Linux, what hope is there for Rev on Linux?
>
> Betamax and VHS were different products.  It was one or the other.  You got
> your stuff to run on one, it would not run on the other unles you redid it.
> You supported one, you did not support the other.  Tapes for one would not
> play on the other.
>
> These things are not like that.  Sidux is Debian.  Ubuntu is Debian.  Just
> like Windows Vista Beta is Vista.  Just like Rev 4.x public beta is Rev.
>
> If Debian were to vanish, there would be no more sidux, and no more Ubuntu
> either.  There is a reason they are called .deb files, there is a reason
> they can all use apt-get.
>
> Mandriva, Suse, Slackware, Red Hat, Fedora etc are not Debian.   There is a
> real choice between the Debian family and one of them.
>
> Richard's argument might be valid, or would be more valid, if he were to
> phrase it differently.  A more valid form of it would go, don't use
> Slackware or Mandriva or Red Hat/Fedora as a reference distribution.  Use a
> Debian based one. The total market share of the Debian based ones is
> probably larger than the Red Hat based ones.
>
> To which the reply is, Yes, there are good arguments for using a Debian
> based one, the question is which one?  Then we start having the kind of
> debate that I am engaging in, which says, don't pick unstable moving
> targets
> as your reference implementation of your chosen platform.  You would not
> pick Vista Beta as your chosen reference implementation of Vista, what
> makes
> you think its intelligent to pick the latest, or any particular, version of
> Ubuntu or sidux as a reference implementation?
>
> Its similar to, if you want it to be Red Hat based, we could have a
> discussion about whether you should pick Fedora or Red Hat itself.  Just
> like if you want to run a Red Hat based server, what are the benefits of
> CentOS?  The thing that is just a complete misunderstand is if we start
> arguing that Fedora is doing better in the market, and so we only need to
> test on that, its the market leader after all.  Its like VHS, and in some
> way we think of Red Hat as being like Betamax?  That is really getting the
> wrong end of a stick.
>
> This is not about taking sides, about market share of one variant or
> another, its about picking  sensible ways of going about things in software
> testing.  It is obvious that what Rev is doing on Linux is not working.  I
> think it may, may be down to what implementation of the Debian platform
> they
> insist on testing against.  Or that may be a substantial factor.  I don't
> know for sure, not having been into Edinburgh and looked, but it seems
> plausible.
>
> And when I hear people talking about the different implementations of
> Debian
> in terms of Debian being Betamax and the others or some of them being VHS,
> it makes that seem more plausible.  If Richard doesn't understand this
> properly, what hope is there that Edinburgh does?
>
> This is probably all I will say about this for now.  Looking forward to
> 4.5,
> and we'll maybe revisit things then.
> --
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