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Three Major Linux Distributions Certified LSB Compliant

Posted by timothy on from the oh-you're-so-compliant dept.

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.)

11 of 188 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What about Debian? by ArtDent · · Score: 5, Informative

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

  2. RPM... by matman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's too bad that the LSB people havn't yet taken on packaging issues. They've effectively chickened out by just recommending RPM. The best features of RPM, DEB and the BSD ports system should be reflected in a new packaging format for people to work towards using. Not only should this format be recommended by the LSB, but the LSB should define policies for the use of the format - package name and version formats, dependencies and package alias names, source package handling, non-official packages, etc. This really is necessary to get distribution of commercial software on Linux; testing for and supporting distribution differences is just too expensive for most companies. This is not to say that everyone supporting RPM won't help, but rather that policies are needed to really make it work, and that we may as well get a more optimal package management system happening :)

    1. Re:RPM... by inkfox · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Not that I would ever be insane enough to put apt in a cron job like the typical Debian user

      A typical Debian user would not do this. Good god, that's a recipe for disaster!

      "Typical" Debian users are more concerned with stability than they are in "upgrading" constantly.

      --
      Says the RIAA: When you EQ, you're stealing bass!
    2. Re:RPM... by cant_get_a_good_nick · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The BSD ports setup pretty much requires source distribution and the target audience for LSB isn't interested in that.

      BSD also has binary packages, which mesh with the ports system. They're .tgz packages with the normal pre and postinstall scripts available in the package. I always thought of the BSD system as pretty slick, a source model and a binary package model that mesh well. Anything I installed from ports I remove with the package tools. I can check for new versions of all externally installed software (packages and ports) with the same command. They blend well enough for me that I kind of see them as one system.

  3. Re:The story didn't mention which versions by phatvibez · · Score: 5, Informative

    (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

    --
    --- Brad (http://www.LinuxReview.net)
  4. Eh? What ya talking about? by jmorris42 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't see seven layers of API. That's just FUD you are spouting from either the Windows or Berlin camp.

    A typical GNOME app makes calls into the GNOME libraries, which are linked at the hip to GTK. GTK directly talks the lowest wirelevel X protocol which gets stuff on the framebuffer.

    A KDE app talks to the KDE libraries which are built on Qt. Qt talks Xlib (QT experts feel free to call me an idiot and correct me) which, like GTK, talks directly to the X server.

    And if you want to argue that X imposes too much overhead, that is why we have things like the shared memory extension and Xrender.

    But NO, window managers must remain ordinary applications, otherwise X turns into something brain damaged like Windows or a Mac.

    --
    Democrat delenda est
  5. Re:What about Debian? by Macrobat · · Score: 5, Funny
    What's Debian's status in this matter?
    I believe they're aiming to be GNU/LSB certified.
    --
    "Hardly used" will not fetch you a better price for your brain.
  6. Re:Nooooooo, evil RPMs! by Khalid · · Score: 5, Informative

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

  7. It's close by hendridm · · Score: 4, Informative

    Debian 3.0 did pretty well compared to SuSE.

    Link shamelessly stolen from this post.

  8. Re:What about Debian? by noahm · · Score: 4, Informative
    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

  9. Re:LSB vs FHS by deblau · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    --
    This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.