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Conectiva Linux 7.0 Review

Posted by michael on from the land-down-under dept.

Patrick Mullen writes: "The Duke of URL has posted their review of Conectiva Linux 7.0. Conectiva Linux was the first distribution to support APT-RPM, which cures most of the ails of typical RPMs. Their latest release even bundles a graphical front-end to APT, and brings the worlds of Debian and Red Hat together."

6 of 89 comments (clear)

  1. Boom! by adamwright · · Score: 3, Funny

    Conectiva Linux was the first distribution to support APT-RPM

    I would've though there'd be some sort of matter/antimatter explosion when apt and rpm came together judging by the flamewars I've seen....

  2. I could care less now... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    this apt vs rpm vs tar.gz vs etc. isn't getting linux anyware. Fortunately, Gentoo Linux seems to be on the right track with their Portage package management system...

    Here is a blurb from their website (http://www.gentoo.org/):

    "Gentoo Linux is a versatile and fast, completely free x86-based Linux distribution geared towards developers and network professionals. Unlike other distros, Gentoo Linux has an advanced package management system called Portage. Portage is a true ports system in the tradition of BSD ports, but is Python-based and sports a number of advanced features including dependencies, fine-grained package management, "fake" (OpenBSD-style) installs, safe unmerging, system profiles, virtual packages, config file management, and more."

  3. Re:Site only in Spanish and Portugese? by adebater · · Score: 4, Informative

    try
    http://en.conectiva.com/download/

  4. Connectiva employs many kernel mantainers by Pac · · Score: 4, Informative

    Like other major distributions, the brazilian Connectiva employs many people closely related to Linux development.

    Marcelo Tosatti was recently announced as the new head mantainer over the 2.4 stable kernel tree. Rik Van Riel is known for his work in the memory management subsystem and Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo works with IPX.

    The point here is not to praise Connectiva (or Red Hat or anyone), but to notice that it is perfectly possible to run a profitable company and care for the development community at the
    same time.

  5. apt is not the whole story by mvdwege · · Score: 3, Informative

    While the reviewer is right that apt is a wonderful tool, he is guilty of two very common mistakes:

    1. apt is not the package manager per se. It is a front end to the package manager. Therefore the whole idea of using it with another package manager as its default (dpkg) is not so unlikely as it sounds. In fact, as far as I can make out from my Debian documentation, apt is specifically designed to be agnostic in regards to what package manager does the actual work.
    2. The previous was only a minor quibble. His major mistake is however his assertion that you can download any .rpm and have apt sort out the dependencies. Guess what? It doesn't work that way. In order for apt to work, it needs a central repository that provides it with a correct dependency list. Without that, you're back to the good old dependency hell. This is what makes Connectiva and Debian great, because that is exactly what they provide, and it is only because they do that that apt is such a great tool
    Mart (a happy Debian user)
    --
    "I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
  6. Re:For your information, Mandrake... by tim_maroney · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The graphic front end gives you NO indication as to what it's doing or how long it'll take (or how much it's done).

    Gad. That's such an elementary design mistake. It's bad GUIs like this that convince people that GUIs suck. Most of the graphical software I see on free platforms seems to be written by people who hate graphical programs and want everyone else to hate them too.

    Tim