package managers

[dek]

I'm still very new to the Linux world so I'm looking for some helpful advice. So far I have played around with Mandrake, Suse, Debian, and even a little with Gentoo and I'm having a little trouble deciding which one to stick with as my distro of choice.

I think that, for me, the decision is going to come down to package management. So far I have been most impressed with Suse's YaST. However I know that apt-get has a really good reputation and a lot of people around here are big fans of Portage. Given this, I've ruled my choices down to Suse, Debian, or Gentoo.

So I guess my question is this: Are there really significant and quantifiable advantages of one of these package managers over the others or is it largely a matter of personal preference?

BTW - This is my first time posting in the Alt OSes section but I have been lurking for quite a while and I want to say, "Thanks" for all the great advice and help that has been posted here.

[klingens]

If you just want an easy to use version of Debian, try Ubuntu or maybe Knoppix.
Gentoo and Debian are more for tweakers, or "have everything MY way" people. Not necessarily beginner distros: just too much work and knowledge involved to customize them properly. However: if you continue to use Linux and learning more and more, you might end up at one of them eventually anyways :)

To answer your question: at this point package managers are not really an issue. All rpm based distros have now apt-get capabilities and good distros like debian and gentoo had those for ages.
The deciding factor are the packages themselves: how well are they built, how well maintained. This is the real secret why Debian apt-get kicks ass: myriads of debian developers who constantly churn out high quality packages which interact very well with each other and allow seamless upgrades to happen flawlessly. The fact that dpkg and apt are a little bit better than rpm is nice, but not essential.

[dek]

Thanks for the comments Klingens. So are you saying that most decent distros have cross-comaptibility with packages from other distros; i.e. from Dabien or gentoo I could install an RPM package and from Suse or Mandrake I could use apt-get to install a Debian package?

[klingens]

No. You can never really mix packages from different distros. Trying to do so usually means trouble. It's far better to compile stuff from scratch and build your own packages. Less hassle this way.
What happened is that e.g. Suse and Redhat now can use apt-get for dependency management in their distros. It's an advantage of open source: if someone invents something cool and useful (like debian did with apt), sooner or later all others will copy it and benefit from it.

[dek]

Ok, that makes since. Thanks again for the help. I've got a couple of systems to work with so I may just try a couple different distros at once for a while and see which packages I like better.

[{PMS}fishy]

I would try Gentoo. Portage is by far the best package manager out there. I could get really into it, but Im not going to. Its very powerful, and very flexiable. You can use pacakges from a stable tree, or all the newest realease, or a comboniation of both.

I played around alot with RPM based distros, RH, Mandrake, Fedora, and never was able to do much with them. Mandrake's update never worked. RPMs in RH where a nightmare, with dep. hell, and Fedora was the same way.

I have also used Knoppix Live CDs, but never really ran it off a HDD for any amount of time, so I cannot speak for Debian or any Debian based OS, as far as updating, and managing the system go.

I knew very little when I started using Gentoo, and have learned a good amount since. My number 1 reason for switching to Gentoo was portage. I was so sick of not being able to install an application, or hunt all of the web for a DL that worked, and was not corrupted. Once I finally got Gentoo up (took 2 weeks the first time) I was 100% set that this was the distro for me. I could install any application, check to see what needed to be updated on my system, update all of it, or do it one package at a time.

The second best part about Gentoo is the fact that its all built from source. Its not only the fastest Distro out there, its the most customizable. Only progams that you install (or a a dep of another program you install) end up on your system. If you only want KDE, and not the hundreds of extras that take up space and resources, than all you have to do is install kdebase. Most other Distros stick you with the huge bloated KDE, and KDE tends to get a bad wrap for that reason. KDE without all the fluff is very fast, both in loadings, and other operations.

So in conclusion, Poratge is the best package manager, and thus Gentoo is the best distro.

[{PMS}fishy]

No. You can never really mix packages from different distros. Trying to do so usually means trouble. It's far better to compile stuff from scratch and build your own packages. Less hassle this way.
What happened is that e.g. Suse and Redhat now can use apt-get for dependency management in their distros. It's an advantage of open source: if someone invents something cool and useful (like debian did with apt), sooner or later all others will copy it and benefit from it.

Thats not true. I can emerge RPM, and install/remove/update RPM packages on my Gentoo machine, that were meant for RedHat. Im not sure if I could get apt-get running, but Im sure someone has it out there. Also there are people with apt-get on Fedora machines, and it does not come out of the box with apt-get.

[klingens]

And that rpm database will not interact with the existing portage system, so you will be in dependency hell up to your neck and further from the start. so why bother with rpm on gentoo in the first place? Same thing with apt-get: why would anyone want to run it on gentoo. even more so with apt-get, since it's not a package management but just a dependency resolver

I thought apt-get (or was it yum) is part of the distro.

[{PMS}fishy]

And that rpm database will not interact with the existing portage system, so you will be in dependency hell up to your neck and further from the start. so why bother with rpm on gentoo in the first place? Same thing with apt-get: why would anyone want to run it on gentoo. even more so with apt-get, since it's not a package management but just a dependency resolver

I thought apt-get (or was it yum) is part of the distro.


I had a file that was .rpm and I could not find it any other way.

I wasn't saying I would want to run anything other than portage, Im just saying that its possible.

I was pretty sure that Fedora used Yum, it might be differenet now. I remember that FC1 and I think FC2 didn't have apt-get as I saw some read mes on how to set it up, but nuked the OS before I got around to trying apt-get on Fedora.

[kaltag]

Here's another vote for Gentoo. I am currently running it exclusivey except for a slower file server that is running slackware. Also, if you REALLY don't want to deal with the Gentoo install you can now install just portage on any other linux distro you want to. So now you can have the dependency solving goodness of gentoo with an "easy" to configure distro like Knoppix, Fedora, Mandrake, or Yoper. I would still recommend using Gentoo though as you may run into problems later with variations in where portage installs files and the other distros do it. Good luck either way.