[ale] Favorite distros

[Byron A Jeff]

> 
> What?
> 
> > Slack is a total loss here because almost no one builds 
> > precompiled Slack packages anymore
> 
> http://www.linuxpackages.net

That's a start. It's still missing a lot of stuff.

> 
> > compiling from source is nearly impossible
> 
> I run ./configure ; make ; checkinstall on hundreds of things under
> Slackware with absolutely no problems. Where are you getting your
> information?

>From nearly 10 years of continuous use. I'm not talking about the actual

Installation processes. I'm talking about the dependency process.  You want
some piece of software. It needs SDL version 1.2 or higher. SDL wants some
audio library.  The audio library requires some ALSA tools. ALSA only
compiles with gcc 2.96 or somesuch, which requires you to recompile your
glibc libraries. By the time you get back to the beginning of the dependancy
tree, it simply isn't worth the effort to compile the program in the first
place. Trust me I've slugged through many a dependancy tree getting stuff 
installed on my 7.1 box.

BTW I have exactly the same issues with Perl and its modules. It's not the fact
that they are difficult to install, it's the fact that you have to spend time
and energy locating, downloading, installing packages in a particular order
in order to get an app to run.

I'm a longtime Slack user. I have no compunction do diss it. But in today's
Linux software world where everything is interdependant on everything else,
package dependancy management is a critical tool. Slack doesn't have it,
Gentoo and Debian do.

BAJ

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