Three Major Linux Distributions Certified LSB Compliant

KevinDumpsCore writes "RedHat, Mandrake, and SuSE are now certified LSB compliant!" Here's the announcement on the Free Standards Group's site. The Linux Standards Base (check out these related Slashdot posts) has been working for years to perhaps tame the what-lives-where cross-distro craziness. (Of course, distro makers are under no obligation to comply with the LSB's choices.)

Comments

I think this is Better than 'United Linux'

[BroadbandBradley]

a nice open standard like LSB, imagine the improvement in install docs, cross distro rpms...this is a good thing.

Re:I think this is Better than 'United Linux'

[EggplantMan]

More exciting is conformance to a single ABI standard in combination with installation script support. This is a godsend for package maintainers; in the future they will only have to compile and package once, and your app is supported on multiple distros.

Re:What about Debian?

[ArtDent]

LSB requires compliant distributions to provide, not use, rpm, and Debian does.

Re:The story didn't mention which versions

[phatvibez]

(http://www.opengroup.org/lsb/cert/cert_prodlist.t pl?CALLER=display_product.tpl)

-Mandrake Linux ProSuite 8.2 + first update CD
-Red Hat Linux 7.3 with glibc 2.2.5-39+kernel 2.4.18-10 or later
-SuSE Linux 8.0 Professional + aaa_base and Kernel Update

Re:What about Debian?

[sporty]

LSB seems to require redhat packages. They can't use triggers and some other things, but it is required they used rpm.

Re:Ok, GREAT now merge Gnome and KDE

[JanneM]

Look up Metatheme - it's supposed to do that eventually.

And there _is_ work on improving compatibility; with KDE3, the clipboard now works the same in just about every desktop, there is a common menu description format, Gnome is moving towards using arts as the soundserver, they use the same XML lib, and so on. There's even a site for coordinating desktop-interoperability in Linux (though I don't have the link handy).

The most difficult problem is of course theming. It would be all but impossible to make a common theme format; you'd probably end up with a 'compatibility engine' that can take themes written for it - and that nobody will use, as the native themes will be cooler and faster anyway. Something like Metatheme will probably have a better chance, and even then, it greatly depends on multiple people working together to create a unified theme. /Janne

Re:Nooooooo, evil RPMs!

[Khalid]

I have been using apt for rpm (apt4rpm.sf.net) for ages, works insanly well !! resolve de dependency hell !

It's close

[hendridm]

Debian 3.0 did pretty well compared to SuSE.

Link shamelessly stolen from this post.

Re:RPM...

[blaine]

Exactly who the hell puts apt in a cron job?

I mean, I have a short script that I wrote that checks to see if there are any updates, and emails me the results. I have it run every night on my domain box, and thus, every morning, I find out if there are needed upgrades. At that point, I can go check out why the upgrades are needed, and perform the udpate manually.

However, I would never have apt upgrade my system without me being there, and I highly doubt anyone else with any brains would. So please, stop spouting bullshit about how the "typical Debian user" does something that retarded, because I've never met a single person who has done that, and I've known a lot of people running Debian.

Re:What about Debian?

[printman]

LSB requires the lpr command, not the lpr software. CUPS, LPRng, Berkeley lpr, and GNU lpr all satisfy the LSB requirement IIRC.

Re:What about Debian?

[noahm]

The are some problems, for some reason LSB specifies a standard package, ie RPM I do not know why, I see no reason for it, but obvious this is a problem for Debian, which has its own (imo superior) package (debs).

Grr, I'm so tired of people not getting this. The LSB usage of RPM is simply not a problem for Debian. We have no problems handling .rpm packages. See the rpm and alien packages (particularly alien) to see how we do it. The RPM thing is a non-issue regarding Debian's LSB compliance.

To see how seriously Debian takes LSB compliance, go have a look at the archives of the various LSB related Debian mailing lists

noah

Re:LSB vs FHS

[deblau]

LSB is an attempt to standardize many aspects of a Linux distribution, such as binary (executable) file format, dynamic libraries, packages, and system initialization. They also standardize file system format, and the LSB 1.2 is FHS 2.2 compliant.

Re:MDK?

[tg_schlacht]

IANALE - I am not a Linux expert. (But I ain-t Joe Six-Pack either.)

From my reading of the LSB it seems to address base level system issues:

- Having at least the minimum standard set of base, utility, and graphic libraries.

- Having at least the minimum standard set of system commands.

- Having standard init script actions, comments.

I don't see anything in the LSB regarding the location of window manager configuration files. Maybe they will add something regarding that to the standard in the future.

For now the focus of the LSB seems to be standardizing distros so that applications will install to standard locations, can expect standard libraries to exist, and can expect that system configuration information will be the same across distros.