On Thu, Jan 08, 2009 at 08:43:36AM +1000, James Mills wrote:
On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 5:50 AM, Thomas Penteker <tek@serverop.de> wrote:
* lucas@die.net.au (lucas@die.net.au) wrote:
Is it just me or does anyone disagree that CRUX is a source based distro.
1. Release ISOs are shipped with packages. 2. Applications are installed from packages. (...)
In total this topic does not seem to be a point of much interest to me.
This topic interests me little also.
For those that care, CRUX can be considered both a source and binary based distribution, however, perhaps we should call it neither.
I have many a time explained to new users of CRUX that it builds packages from source, but that you can also just use packages (if you have them).
I guess one thing to point out is that we do not have a central repository of binary packages like we do ports. Furthermore, I do not th8ink having one in future would be beneficial to CRUX anyway. In multiple systems in a network I have maintained such a repository myself so that packages could be built on a master server and upgraded on all other nodes.
Point in case, CRUX is neither solely a source or binary based distribution.
Let us talk about this no further :)
Such a long reply for someone who doesn't care ;P Such reasoning would mean that no distro is purely source or binary based, it all depends on how you use it. I'm sure we've all experienced the annoyance in binary distros where the provided package does not have feature X enabled and have to build from source, does this invalidate the definition of a distro as binary based once you start building from source? Probably not. Debian is and always will be considered a binary distro, regardless of how you use it. So what then defines a distro as binary or source based. Perhaps it is the primary method of obtaining software for installation. CRUX would still be in a grey area as we do provide packages, given a very small subset of the ports available. All said I still consider the definition of CRUX being source based as incorrect. Many distros fit into this mixed binary/source type. Perhaps I'm just fighting with semantics, but I think too many people see source vs. binary distros as mutually exclusive distrobution methods. Also, the best way to kill a thread that is of no interest to you is to not reply :) -- Lucas Hazel <lucas@die.net.au>