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Intel Switches From Ubuntu To Fedora For Mobile Linux
An anonymous reader writes "According to a report on heise, Intel is switching from using Ubuntu to the Fedora Project for the second version of the Intel supported Mobile & Internet Linux Project Moblin, citing a desire to use RPM package management." So far, of the various subnotebooks I've been glancing at over shoulders at OSCON, though, most of the ones with an easily identified operating system seem to be running Ubuntu.
Except that deb packages (by policy) do include that info.
/* FUCK - The F-word is here so that you can grep for it */
I hope Intel has a good rehab program in mind to tackle the dependency hell...
I keep turning this over in my head, and keep coming back to the same scenario:
Steve Ballmer, in the Throne Room of his secret volcano lair: You begin to understand the true nature of my diabolic plan: If we cannot make Windows better, we will make Linux WORSE!
Anonymous Intel lackeys: Yes, master!
Steve Ballmer: Now go! Take these Fedora DVDs and install them on every Linux computer you find! Soon the foolish rebels will be BEGGING for Vista!
Steve Ballmer rips a bolted-down chair from the floor and holds it above his head, cackling devilishly, while his lieutenants and lackeys scramble for the exits.
==
(...with apologies to all three happy Fedora users...)
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
The package metadata does not contain the license beyond whether it's considered free or non-free, however every package is required to include usr/share/doc/[packagename]/copyright with the text of the license.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
I've used both, and for what little it's worth, I disagree.
For one thing, with yum I don't need to know what package name I want to install. I can "yum install certtool", and it will determine that certtool is provided by gnutls-utils and install that package. IIRC, apt-get can't do that.
I can also ask yum to install a package that's in the local filesystem, along with whatever it requires. apt-get can't do that, either.
Half of the docs that I've seen indicate that debs should be built by hand, and then the results should be packaged. I don't know what the deal is there, but rpm has always used the "spec" file to build and package software, which is a more repeatable process. Deb has "rules" now. If they were always there, I'd like to be corrected on that point. The fact that there is documentation for other processes suggests to me that the deb build process has been much worse than rpm's.
Beyond all of that, Fedora is building some really nice tools on top of rpm for automated rebuilds and packaging. Basically, all of the tools that they use to manage the distribution are open source, which makes it much easier for someone else (like Intel) to build a distribution based on Fedora's tools.
I know that Ubuntu attracts a lot of users, but I can definitely see why developers would prefer to use Fedora's tools as a base.
And didn't some big Linux fan make a switch away from RedHat because of RPM issues?
That was ESR. He forced rpm to remove a package, even though rpm warned him that other packages needed it in order to function. Surprise of surprises, his system stopped working just like he was told that it would.
It was in no way rpm's fault that his system broke. ESR thought he knew better than rpm, and he was wrong.