Hi.

Hi Lucas

I agree with you, the software management suite on CRUX is in fact package based, true. But it makes a lot more sense to say that CRUX is source-based if someone asks. Because usually he wants to know whether he can lazily download the packages and install or has to compile them himself. Or in another case he wants to know whether it is facilitated to compile the packages himself and thus inflict his own personal CFLAGS and whatever optimizations he needs/wants/likes to have.

I vote for "it all depends on the context".

I have a question for you though. Why is it bad when people call it a source-based distribution. Is that something to do with honor? Or simply because it's basically, at the core of the statement, wrong even though it's, as illustrated above, practical. ;-)

cheers Philip Stark

P.S: This is my first contribution to this ML. Hello everyone. I am a EE student at ETH in Switzerland.

2009/1/7 <lucas@die.net.au>:

...

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.

After the package is built. what is the point here. you have to compile

To me it's a source based distro as you have to compile, but it has a binary bootstrapping iso to get you started the port to make the package to begin with. I'ts still source based with a binary package cache.

...

Consider FreeBSD's ports system (and possibly pkgsrc) software is installed directly from the source. An intermediatary package is only built if requested. This in my opinion is a truly source based method.

CRUX in my eyes is simply a package based distro with no central package repository.

For the case of the single user CRUX may appear to be source based due to the absence of a central package repo, but this is naive. I have often had many CRUX boxes all with similar software installed, it would be a horrible waste of time to build packages on every single machine. Naturally you would have a build machine that all other CRUXen could access packages from.

Package based distros with a central package repo are still at their roots, source based. Someone had to compile the source and ship a package. So called package based distros such as debian, archlinux and fedora still have tools for building their preferred package type from source.

The only difference is that CRUX doesn't have the man power (or want) to maintain a central repo and enforce dependency hell on it's users.

</rant>

-- Lucas Hazel <lucas@die.net.au>

Regards, Danny Rawlins

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 :) cheers James

On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 9:48 AM, <lucas@die.net.au> wrote: (...)

Such a long reply for someone who doesn't care ;P

The problem is I do care :)

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.

It's architecture. CRUX has a fairly minimal and open architecture. It does not confine itself to either source or binary packaging.

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.

Yes it is just semantics. I would move to relax the definition that CRUX is source, and rather be more clear about this. source and/or binary are not mutually exclusive as we have all experienced. prt-get vs. pkg-get ? You can use them both almost interchangably :) cheers James