First of all, your personal situation is not a model for every other user. Using the same linux distro for 5 years straight without bothering to update or connecting to the net is pretty exceptional.
Second, how you choose to waste your time is your business, not mine, so no onus is on me.
In your case I'd say that Package management is not for you. Package Managers were invented to make software installing, up-(or down)grading and removing easier, without handing a big rope to the user to hang himself with. AKA: maintainance. If you choose to never maintain your system or prefer the long rope to hang yourself with, then PM does not make your life easier and you should not use it.
For myself, I don't think system maintainace is very interesting, but I am concerened not to keep insecure software on my box that offers some services to the net. I could keep tabs on every security related mailinglist for the software i have installed, but I think that is a pain in the butt and a waste of time.
That is why I run apt-get update && apt-get upgrade once in a while. I trust the debian developers to keep the repository safe, and in return I don't have to do a lot of work others have already done before.
When i wish to install some new software or remove some old things, I have to do very little myself, apt-get install or apt-get remove do the trick nicely. I had to do that with software installed from source, I'd have to figure out what it depends on, install that, then compile and install the actual package. For removing I'd have to pray that a uninstall target was in the makefile or I remembered what install location I had chosen at configure time. I'd also have to deal with software that depended on the piece I just removed. All in all a chore that is a pain in the butt, wastefull and can easily be automated.
As for your 'maintaining multiple different distro's over a dialup onnenction', that is just very far fetched. If you wish to keep them in running order, you will have to invest time in them to learn how to do it their way. I you only know one way and don't wish to learn any different, then go find the one distro that you can treat your way, and chuck the others. Treating Gentoo, Debian Suse, Redhat, FreeBSD or OSX are not Slackware, and if you treat them that way, you are asking for misery.
Look at it this way: If nearly every distro includes gcc and make, what makes your situation so special that you should not compile from source?
Well, because it is a waste of time? Installing a binary package takes a few seconds, compiling it takes a lot longer and leaves you without all ease of use of PM. Even the distro known for compiling from source, gentoo, has a package manager to handle source packages, now why would that be?
So one can easily turn your question around: Almost all distro's are installed and maintained with a package manager. What makes your situation so special that you should not use a package manager?
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Re:(Was:) Not all standard comment is bad
Posted by: JelleB on July 27, 2005 03:27 AMSecond, how you choose to waste your time is your business, not mine, so no onus is on me.
In your case I'd say that Package management is not for you. Package Managers were invented to make software installing, up-(or down)grading and removing easier, without handing a big rope to the user to hang himself with. AKA: maintainance. If you choose to never maintain your system or prefer the long rope to hang yourself with, then PM does not make your life easier and you should not use it.
For myself, I don't think system maintainace is very interesting, but I am concerened not to keep insecure software on my box that offers some services to the net. I could keep tabs on every security related mailinglist for the software i have installed, but I think that is a pain in the butt and a waste of time.
That is why I run apt-get update && apt-get upgrade once in a while. I trust the debian developers to keep the repository safe, and in return I don't have to do a lot of work others have already done before.
When i wish to install some new software or remove some old things, I have to do very little myself, apt-get install or apt-get remove do the trick nicely. I had to do that with software installed from source, I'd have to figure out what it depends on, install that, then compile and install the actual package. For removing I'd have to pray that a uninstall target was in the makefile or I remembered what install location I had chosen at configure time. I'd also have to deal with software that depended on the piece I just removed. All in all a chore that is a pain in the butt, wastefull and can easily be automated.
As for your 'maintaining multiple different distro's over a dialup onnenction', that is just very far fetched. If you wish to keep them in running order, you will have to invest time in them to learn how to do it their way. I you only know one way and don't wish to learn any different, then go find the one distro that you can treat your way, and chuck the others. Treating Gentoo, Debian Suse, Redhat, FreeBSD or OSX are not Slackware, and if you treat them that way, you are asking for misery.
Well, because it is a waste of time? Installing a binary package takes a few seconds, compiling it takes a lot longer and leaves you without all ease of use of PM. Even the distro known for compiling from source, gentoo, has a package manager to handle source packages, now why would that be?
So one can easily turn your question around:
Almost all distro's are installed and maintained with a package manager. What makes your situation so special that you should not use a package manager?
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