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Toward a New Kind of Linux Distribution
An anonymous reader writes "Progeny co-founder Ian Murdock wrote a weblog entry that has been reprinted at Newsforge. He talks about how current distros are built from the top down, making a 'one-size-fits-all' solution of technology. He proposes making a modular solution that encompasses building modules so distros can include only the technology they need to suit their purpose, kinda like building from the bottom up. Interesting read, good arguments, potential for a new Linux community."
Progeny co-founder Ian Murdock wrote
Wouldn't it be worth mentioning that he is founder of Debian as well?
Note to self: get smarter troll to guard door.
but wouldn't something like this be better based on Gentoo? If it's going to be modular and simple to use for the majority I think it'd be better off with package management more along the gentoo line, instead of debian, which while good is more suited to hackish, more finely grained options?
This seems like a pretty good idea, I am sure that many people would adopt it. However, it sounds an awful lot like Linux From Scratch, or Gentoo. I'm assuming that a distribution like the one proposed must be a binary one to appeal to the masses.Overall, though, this sounds like a good way to attract more people to the Linux community.
What I don't get is how this is different from, say, Debian or Gentoo at all. At the end of his blog he says "If this sounds a lot like Debian, that's because it is in many ways", goes on to list the ways, and then doesn't list any differences other than an Anaconda installer. So, is this debian that installs like redhat and lets you choose packages? I mean, it doesn't sound like there's anything new here at all.
You can mod your friends, you can mod your nose, but you can't mod your friend's nose.
Many options are selected at compile time, rather than in configuration files, for instance processor selection. My php configuration includes "--with-mcrypt --with-gd --with-jpeg-dir --with-png-dir --with-freetype-dir". The number of different downloads for any pre-compiled distribution will be enormous.
Rock Linux isn't a Linux distribution: it's a distribution build kit, that allows you to build your own tailored distribution from sources, with your choice of configuration options.
Even if there aren't currently the options that you want, the simple text-mode configuration files allow you easily to add your own.
One size fits all is good. That is why everyone knows how to use a PC (and Windows) and why Unix is a support nightmare. The last thing we need is another Unix/Linux dialect.
They started by making products designed for single roles, with a database server, a groupware and messaging server, and a fileserver.
Modularity is great for large organizations, but at this point it would be foolish to fall into MS's line of thinking, that you need a separate server for each role in the industry. It would behoove us to try harder to break down the barriers between servers so that they can act in a cohesive, stable and seamless fashion, whether there is one server, five servers, or five thousand servers.
And that's why we need a stronger LVM!
I don't know about the distro he's using, but my build of Gentoo only has the packages I want (plus their requirements).
The bottom up model is being used by distros other than Gentoo, too. He's not breaking any new ground or creating any unique ideas IMHO.
Looks can be deceiving. Or CAN they?
Sounds like a great idea - but surely that's what you get from the gentoo linux system - you custom build a verison of linux that not only has 'just the components you need' in it, but also is (or can be) specifically tailored to suit your hardware and peripherals etc. I can see an avenue for component based distributions taking off, however. The two challenges with Gentoo are 1) the need to compile everything from scratch (which can take ages) and 2) the almost vertical learning curve required to get the resulting linux system to work (work out of the box? - not really!). Presumably the component model might allow both of these to be addressed...
Interesting. I'd always felt that this is how Linux really works the best., rather than being a giant 1 gig hunk of software, I can pick and choose the parts I want to play with. This leads to lots of mistakes early on, but over time, you learn how to optimize and reevaluate what you need and where, with the end result of understanding your system that much better. So my question is: Was this a suggestion for Linux in general, or a suggestion for a new type of business model?
We could always base it on the AmigaOS method
Release an operating system and... uhh leave it at that, while never releasing an update ever again. It's worked for the last 20 years of Amiga's!
In order for Linux to appeal to the masses, these "choices" must be available in an easily installable "package". It would be great to install only those options you need, want or require. And, I think most important, is the time it takes to set up the system.
His idea sounds very close to Morphix. It allows easy building of customized live-cd distributions. It supplies its own installer too.
Morphix is modular, and can be adapted with less effort
The base, the Knoppix part contains the kernel, kernel modules, hardware detection, etc. This base is left untouched. You can either a change a mainmod or add lots of minimodules.
The are four basic images to start off with. So making you own LiveCD is much easier.
It even possible to save you files, configuration and setting to the Morphix CD you using, ready for next boot up.
Did I mention the GUI installer ...
Brendan Mentioned before and here
He says a basical iso is avaible and "More components and a component-aware, Anaconda-based installation mechanism will be added in the coming weeks".
Heh, compiling everything for oneself through an intuitive gui sounds pretty cool to me !
Gentoo now accessible to the unwashed masses (which I'm part of), Yay !
I think it would be good from a security stand point to be able to quickly build the most minimal system, but there is still probably a lot of stuff in the Kernel that isn't needed. Still it would be great to have a tool that was based on the reserve of package dependency and removed everything you didn't want/need.
http://www.hawknest.com/
Wouldn't it be neat if you could go to a website, enter in a list of all the hardware on your computer, enter in the applications or types of applications you want to use, and then download a customized installation CD with only what you want included? Then if you changed any hardware or wanted more software, you'd revisit the site, enter in the changes, and then download a patch including required modules, applications, and a script that installed/configured the changes?
That would be cool.
... is, in my opinion, one of the more interesting Linux distro's around right now.
...
Its not so much a distro, as a 'meta-build system', for building and packaging your own distro.
To me, this is the best solution, and while these sorts of build-system efforts are still in their infancy, I can see a day when you just answer a few questions, press a button, and get a custom CD designed -exclusively- for the application you've defined.
That's pretty nice. As a Linux user since the minix post, I'm excited about more and more of these sorts of 'smart build environments' becoming the 'distro construction set' de jour
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Would be a program that would generate a Linux distribution based on your desires.
It would be a wizard that would ask you questions about what you want. For example, do you want a server or a desktop distro, do you want KDE or Gnome, do you want office software, games, web browsers.
After you answer all the Questions it would make you give it a Name, Such as MooKore Linux, and it would genreate an ISO filled with the RPMs for you for you to install.
found here
The only appreciable difference he could offer (which he did not, but could) is binary packages instead of having to compile everything from source.
Of course, part of the reason Gentoo is from source, and why less modular distributions are so monolithic, is that many UNIX programs require specific options at compile time to modify their behavior to fit just right on your system.
Apart from having a huge compile farm which you'd hand the equivalent of your USE flags in Gentoo, and get back a binary built just right for your system, I don't see any particularly clever way to do this.
"Give away the stone, let the oceans take and transmutate this cold and faded anchor." - Maynard James Keenan
Never mind that Ian Murdock is also a founder of Debian, and that Progeny has always been built on Debian; what objective reason is there for building this kind of OS on Gentoo rather than Debian?
First of all, Debian is quite modular and simple. In fact, Lindows uses it behind their "click 'n' run" front end, and its supposed to be amazingly smooth. Debian can be used for more finely grained options, but can also be used for a modular system as described Murdock.
Plus, lets be honest; source distributions just aren't going to cut it in an environment where package installation speed is important.
Point is it doesn't matter. He has an itch, didn't see anyone willing to scratch so is doing it himself. Maybe it will satisfy others peoples itches as well but if it doesn't it doesn't matter. His itch is being scratched. A non-commercial distro with 1 user who is satisfied is 100% succesful.
Better then all those whiners who want someone else to fix their problems.
But isn't redhat and mandrake and suse modular anyway? Not like they force me to install apache or a window manager. Just the if I want say xmms I bloody well going to have to install X for reasons that should be obvious. You may want MS to stop bundling IE but then don't go complaining that Windows Light doesn't come with a browser installed.
As for putting everything on the CD. Well yes I thought that was pretty nice. Since they want you to buy the thing it means that people with modems don't have to download several gig of extra data just to get a working desktop. KDE is about the only real offender insisting on installing games on every distro I tried.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Gentoo is compartamentalized, but not in anyway that other distros such as debian isn't.
Both Debian and Gentoo are heavily optimizable, you choose the componates that you want etc etc.
Bot have your advantages and disavantages.
Debian's is that the developement cycles that forever to make sure that everything is working correctly, but you get a reliable computer that is usefull for hundreds of different applications.
and Gentoo's big disadvatage is that it's worthless for anything other then home desktop, but you can play around with newest technology.
(could imagine administrating a hundred gentoo boxes buy yourself and getting someone to actually think it's a good idea to pay you to run a OS on them that takes a average of two days to get installed?)
And no compiling for speed is DEFINATELY NOT WORTH IT JUST FOR A PERFORMANCE ADVANTAGE in 95% of the apps you would use on a daily basis.
But IMHO people are naturally moving towards comparmentalized OSes anyways in Linux. Weither or not they realise it.
Think about, APT and other decent package managers have caught on in a big way. Fedora can use both Apt and or Yum.
Using package managers it's easy to customize any install and the BIGGEST advantage is that it's simple to keep everything up to date and to install new programs.
A BIG advantage over closed source stuff. (once you get it set up.)
Now if most linux distros agree to stick to a common Filesystem Hierarchy system (http://www.pathname.com/fhs/) then you can use all sorts of packages together.
I could use Fedora packages, apt packages, debian packages, gentoo build scripts and all sorts of stuff and pluss get support for closed sourced software easily in any distro of my choosing.
If Debian doesn't have a new enough XFree86 build you can install it from Fedora and build the latest KDE 3.x beta from portage scripts from Gentoo.
That's what we should aim for, and a common FHS is pretty close. People are beginning to learn the best way to do stuff and the directory systems are beginning to be more and more common to all Linux distros.
In a few years I hope the consept of numbered linux distro releases will be gone and we will move to a stable/unstable model similar to Debian.
There is mkcd, which allows you to create custom Mandrake CDs with the software and options you want.
And mandrake has a customizable auto bootup/install via drakx (mdk's installer system).
Add all of the above, and a little knowledge about SRPMS (if you want true customization), and it works rather well. Also Mandrake's public download edition is 100% FLOSS, so there are no issues about redistributing the software (unless *you* add some non-FLOSS stuff on your own, heh)
Sunny Dubey
This article is by Ian Murdock, who is the Ian in Debian. The logo isn't there because of a direct relationship to the subject of the article; the Debian logo is there because of a direct relationship to the author.
Notice that his current project (Progeny) is about companies looking to build on a 'distribution neutral platform', and the link in the article goes to a page about 'Progeny Componentized Linux.' Believe or not Gentoo is not the only highly configurable linux game in town: Progeny seems to be playing that game, but at the enterprise not the consumer level. He's definitely not thinking of Gentoo for this role. He's talking about Progeny.
I think PLD (Or in English) tries to be highly modularized:
no restrictions for a set of packages that must be included in the distribution. The user can have access to every package already prepared for PLD. If something had been prepared in conjunction with other packages, it means somebody did need it, and maybe someone will need that package in the future
Now, this is not to suggest that PLD does this well, or that it does this actually implements what Progeny is suggesting, but it's still a starting point.
Although I dont think Ian raises any particularly unique arguments, the article is a susinct introduction to the elements that emphises Linux's strong points.
The thing that aroused my interest in Linux was not its cost, but its ability to be used in projects that were not limited to traditional PC software.
Imbedded linux will (as long as MS doesnt rethink its licensing) rule the non-pc computing world.
It makes perfect sence. Who cares how your C64 watch works, as long as it does.
It seems unlikely that "componentized Linux" is the answer because only imbedded linux realy needs to get down to the "Linux from scratch" kind of level - otherwise, you'll probably be looking for a higher level distro.
Wow - he managed to write 600 words without really explaining what he wants to do.
Is he just saying that distributions should go for niche markets by allowing greater customisation? So instead of installing everything of the 3 CDs you only install what you want? Kind of like every other distro?
Or is it more than that? Some kind of pluggable component system akin to Debian's virtual package "provides" system? So you can have different packages that provide standard services (mail, desktop, web-serving etc.) through common interfaces to the other components.
People keep saying "should be done like Gentoo" or "Debian is like this".What Ian is trying to say is everyone needs to cooperate on this and build a framework which all distros can use.
In my eyes one of the problems Linux has is libraries and their versions. you can't simply take an executable and guarantee it will run on another Linux installation (unless you statically link).
God! Yes! That's it! Why didn't I think of it before? That's what Linux and Linux users need... Another distribution.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
If by some Act of God, Linux were to become what you say it should, then the people who currently use and support it would instead switch to BSD or Darwin or OpenBeOS or some other open, polymorphic OS. Because that's what they want, not Linux for the sake of Linux.
The down side of freedom is that you need to make choices, and the down side of making choices is that you need to do some research. If you want a developer to do all that for you, then you should stick with an OS from company that will do that. Microsoft excels at it, and if that's a little bit too controlling for you, you should be quite happy with Mac. (Seriously, OS X is a great centrally-designed system.) But what see as "what's wrong" is what others see as "what's right". Deal.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Almost all Linux distros are componentised. OK everyone let's hear it: "Linux is not Windows."
We've got distros mainly because we aren't all kernal coders who know all the in's and out's of every single chipset. Quite frankly I don't know who even has the time (but apparently some of you do). We have generic groups of packages/aptget/emerge/etc. to allow for faster deployment. And that's another beautiful part to Linux: Choices!
Yes, perhaps it's overwhelming at first, but you can build it from the ground up if that's what you really want or just pile it on thick and zesty!
The author wants to promote Progeny and "Componentized Linux", and I think there's always room for Yet Another Distro (YAD), but to say the others are doomed to fail because they came on 3 CD's (Think Fidora) is misleading. Mandrake 9.1 came on 3 CD's but it certainly won't force you to install all of it. In fact, you can just select a kernal only option, and it won't even ask for the other two disks. Not only that, but you can hand select only the packages you want. How cool is that?
So I guess what I'm trying to say is that most linux distros have options to allow their users to build it pretty much from the ground up. The reason for the different distros lies in what their vision of the ultimate system looks like when it's totally loaded down.
Can somebody who actually READ THE ARTICLE tell me how much more moduler than apt-get install packageX it can be?
Sounds to me like a front end "Install Web Server?" "Install Development TOols?" choices that proxy a few packages is all this is about.
Aren't all Linux distros these days already got some sort of package managing that manages every file? Even the base Libc? How more moduler can you get???
Isn't this really more along teh lines of marketing hype then it is general user useful?
Come on now, we no longer have sub 50Mhz CPUs (but many times that and getting faster),all the expensive backup media we used to use has been replaced with CD/DVD writers (and that's only going to improve), general storage/access media (hard drives) are far more massive in storage space than the old 120Meg drives and and even far more inexpensive (the larger the drive the cheaper per Meg you pay)....ETC...
And HEY, we can even use more ram bits for dates, avoiding things like Y2K... Or is not gigs of ram not enough?
Is it really a value to have injected additional parts complexity to have to deal with?
What is the trade off? You use up a little less drive space, maybe make a fraction better use of your CPU, use a little less ram space and backup media....in exchange for....
Additional complexity to allow you to screw things up more often...
Hell, just wait 6-18 months and get a new faster, larger storage, more ranm, etc... system.... The cost difference will be less than what you might spend in maintaining componentalized linux.
Hell, I really like the Live CD concept, where it determines what hardware you have and auto-configures.....but all from a standard full package.
Hmm, well, it seems you might be slow, so I'm going to state this just about as clearly as I can.
It's impossible for Gentoo to be as fast as binary-only distributions because it has to the job of the binary distribution (the "make install" part) in addition to the compilation. Which, by the way, is slow (with any program or reasable size) on any hardware. I do use an athlon XP 1600+ which is fairly old (and did indeed perform quite poorly at installing Gentoo packages), but even on a Dual Xeon system, I wouldn't want to have to compile KDE from source.
But the most important thing to note is that many people do use old hardware. Why not support them as well? My work computer is a P3 700, and it runs Debian quite smoothly, and installs even big packages in less than a minute (of course, it helps that my work connection gets > 1megabyte/second to MIT's Debian mirrors). Why should that hardware not be viable? Just because you think everybody should use source only distributions? I don't think so.
One size fits all,
Be you short or be you tall,
Be you wide or be you slim,
Be you her or be you him.
Now please, don't start to scream and yell,
We never said it would fit well.
There are times and places where one size fits all may be vaguely suitable for a good many, even the majority of, people. If one happens to be exactly that "one size" you might even wonder why anyone would ever want something else.
There are also, however, times when one size fit's all, no matter how close the fit, is simply intolerable and a wee bit of tailoring is in order.
If you don't feel the need of another Linux "dialect" than ignore it. Those that do may find the new "dialect" finally makes life bearable.
KFG
The problem we have here is that linux is designed for linux users. Like myself, I prefer gentoo. It fits my person style and I just love emerge-ing all kinds of junk and making my own kernel.
I would like to see a linux distribution the exact opposite. One that I could give to people fed up with windows. It should detect all the hardware like knoppix. Then it will bring up a simple GUI style disk formatting tool, like the mandrake installer. Then after I select which partitions it should just install, no more questions asked. When its done all the hardware should be working. One of every necessary software application should be installed. The gui will be simply laid out with big pretty buttons. One that says Web Browser, another for Word Processor, etc. Wine, lilo and other things will be configured perfectly and automatically without user input. There will also be another big button that says "install software". It will have a big nice easy to use app that sorts softwares by categories, shows screenshots and readable descriptions of different programs. With a single click these programs will be installed and new icons will be created. With another click these programs should also be automatically updated to the newer versions without breaking anything. And of course easy uninstallation is a must too.
I see no reason why this isn't possible. Why hasn't anyone (that I know of) done it yet?
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
The point of Gentoo is that using the source for installation allows much finer grained dependency resolution.
For example, take vim. Depending on what you have installed, it may or may not have Perl integration, Python integration, an X UI, ctags support, make or ANT integration, and so on.
A binary distribution needs to provide a different binary for every possible combination of those, if it's going to allow fine-grained choice around what the Linux system has installed. Either that, or you have to turn off a lot of functionality which could be turned on, in case the dependencies aren't installed.
With Gentoo, the binary's dependencies are determined at install time, so you can have a single package which supports all the possible combinations of other components the user might have chosen to install. If I have Perl but no Python dev tools and opted not to have Python integration, no problem, vim is built appropriately from the same package everyone else is using.
In practice, the binary distributions seem to provide only two versions of vim, a "minimal" terminal-only one, and an "everything, including X" version. Personally, I don't want either of those--I want most things, excluding Python and X. Gentoo lets me have that, Debian doesn't because it doesn't have a vim-perl-ant-make-nox-nopython package.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
There are thousands of fanboys waking up (or getting ready for bed :P) across America right now that are reading this, and all of them are thinking, "Well, this or that distro already does it!" You've all missed the point.
:P) Seriously, though. Linux is linux; let's not make a fuss. It's just nice to see a movement away from the techniques of the past - RPM, in particular, which doesn't make custom rollouts terribly easy.
Has it occured to you that his writing isn't directed towards those of us that already use Linux? Could it be that the founder of Debian would possibly want to make a little money on his toils and ventures by selling his ideas to Suits and PHBs?
No, that couldn't be. Could it?
Yes. (And no, I'm not saying this is a bad thing.)
Stop thinking the world revolves around you (us) and your (our) zealotrous love of your distro. (Particularly you gentoovian freaks with your distcc clusters!
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
That Linux distros are taking the shotgun marketing approach, unlike Microsoft who has painstakingly researched what end users want in an Operating System and for the most part, has delivered exactly what the majority of PC users want. Granted, Linux is destined for the server market for the time being so a distro packed with services is appropriate for the most part, but if Linux ever wants any substantial share of the desktop commodity its going to need to do some serious work on several fronts like UI, ease of use, intuitiveness, size and speed.
End of Line.
My organization is standardizing on it for critical servers, and I think it does a lot of what this article talks about. On install, it asks which services you want to run ... and it ONLY installs what is absolutely necessary to run them. It's pretty lightweight, but gets the job done. And it's also hardened like you wouldn't believe, with most services preconfigured to run in a chroot() jail, something the others should have been doing from the start IMHO.
Website
It's called UnitedLinux
There are several reasons that distros are built top down and you would think that Ian would know.
Linux packaging isn't bad at all, it is actually the lack of any standards that hurts the natural evolution of a modular Linux.
GCC/glibc are moving targets. You can't depend on linking between two versions of GCC or glibc, so all the apps we package today will be of questionable use tomorrow.
All other libraries suffer from the same problem. There is no guarantee that you can upgrade or install anything on the system without breaking random other applications.
There are far too many compile time options in applications. Instead of checking for dependencies at runtime and acting on that information, the applications have to be built either for a minimal system configuration, possibly dropping features, or built with every possible dependency, making installation require far too many dependencies.
Until these issues are cleared up, there is no other way to create a distribution than top down so that all dependencies are known and accounted for or built from source.
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
It's monolithic nature has been one of my major gripes with Linux. This is most apparent in the kernel itself; the sources are distributed in one big (and I mean BIG) tarball containing sources for nigh on every architecture and every device supported. Then when you configure the beast, many options cannot be built as modules, so it's either bloat your kernel or miss out.
The same is true for many distributions. Although a lot of software comes in packages, installations tend to range from quite heavy to almost ridiculous (about 1 GB). And the kernel, again, tends to be a fairly monolithic one, supporting a few filesystems that are unlikely to all be used, etc.
I have to say that Debian tends to be quite OK. The base install is, what? 100 MB? And to that you can just add what you need, dependencies solved for you and all. The kernels you apt-get are usually modular (although the generated ramdisks haven't always worked for me, and cannot be edited due to their being in cramfs). Still, it's annoying that when I want a feature added to my kernel, I have to reconfigure, recompile (I don't' keep the object filesaround - they take too much space), reinstall, and reboot. Sure, I could get a faster computer and a bigger hard drive, but even then, having plenty of something is no excuse to waste it.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Compilation Enhancements
I hear the argument about faster executables a great deal, and it isn't a bad argument. However, Gentoo will allow you to install binary packages, and similarly Debian will allow you to install from source packages. More than that, you can actually find or create apt repositories with dependencies that are multiplexed across a set of architectures (for example, the nerim.net Mplayer repository; just tell it "mplayer-k7" and you get all the nice optimizations for Athlons with it).
Modularity
Again, Debian can be quite modular. Have you heard of Knoppix or Morphix? They are very popular, and quite modular. There are probably more Debian derivitives than any other distro because they are so modular. I realize that Gentoo might also be good in this regard, but if it isn't provably better, I don't see a reason by Debian still wouldn't be a great choice for this project.
What makes you a troll is comparing Stallman to SCO. Sorry if you can't see that- it's not your beliefs that make you a troll, it's the shrill and foolish way in which you shoose to express those beliefs.
I'm sure you'll counter with "well, stallman's action in this case is like SCO." Well, if Stallman had his way, what SCO is doing would be not only illegal (which it probably already is) but vigorously prosecuted. Your comparison papers over differences that are as wide as the ocean.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
The power of Rock isn't in installing a single package, built from source, on your system, though it can do that.
Rock allows you to create your own bootable CD from which you can install your own custom Linux distribution.
1) download Rock (mostly shell scripts and configuration files, and a *very* small number of patches to packages)
2) unpack it
3) select your configuration options - choose from a range of targets - minimal LAMP server, desktop, or create your own list of packages - select your target processor, and any configuration options you want - e.g. build postfix with mysql support.
Some of these are available as tick boxes in the curses based configuration tool, if not you can easily edit a text file.
4) download the sources you need
5) start build
6) drink beer, sleep, whatever
7) create ISO image, burn to CD
8) boot from CD, use curses based installation and configuration tool to install new system.
When you building a large number of boxes to be shipped to customers, and over which you want total control, Rock is superb. I can strip my distribution down to the bare minumum, and easily apply only those security patches or upgrades to new releases of packages I have tested.
Every package management system which supports dependencies (apt, portage, ports, etc etc) will do this. KDE is just a package which depends on all those other packages. In fact this is how it works in the real world anyway: A full KDE3.x environment is made up of such and such libraries, such and such applications, and so on. They just release a new ebuild for the new KDE version, which depends on all the new versions of the component pieces, and when you emerge -u kde all of those packages will be upgraded in order, because the system tracks dependencies. It handles it in much the same way as debian, actually, in that you can make things depend on and provide virtual/foo (for instance vim supplies virtual/editor.) You can also have packages depend on actual packages, with specified version numbers, or you can specify a version >=, etc. Of course you probably know this stuff, but I felt it was worth mentioning here. Anyway apt provides dependencies so debian has the same feature.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
A binary distribution needs to provide a different binary for every possible combination of those, if it's going to allow fine-grained choice around what the Linux system has installed. Either that, or you have to turn off a lot of functionality which could be turned on, in case the dependencies aren't installed.
There are thousands of apache modules out there, but I can get pretty much any combination of them without recompiling. What you're talking about is a design flaw in vim, not a fundemental fact of computing. Look at Emacs with it's LISP based adons. No recompling needed.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n