Ubuntu On Pandora


I'm using Ubuntu right now, but this whole "package management" thing is ruining Linux for me.
I can only have one version of PulseAudio, if I install the Debian version, everything screws up, I can't roll back, I can't delete it and re-activate the old one...
I want to move to GoboLinux as soon as I can.

Or maybe a system that has a copy-on-write setup, so I can "save" my system before I do anything dangerous or stupid, like installing Debian packages. >_>
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I use LVM on Fedora and can therefore make OS snapshots before I make risky updates :p
I think you can use LVM on ubuntu too, but then you need the Alternative Install CD or something.
BTW: Why install the Debian PA version? To get JACK support or what?
And yeah, that's also a problem with Ubuntu, there are too many bad old Debian packages lying around.

And GoboLinux seems to be quite good; hope it gets more package support, tho.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
'lulzfish' said:
I'm using Ubuntu right now, but this whole "package management" thing is ruining Linux for me.
I can only have one version of PulseAudio, if I install the Debian version, everything screws up, I can't roll back, I can't delete it and re-activate the old one...
I want to move to GoboLinux as soon as I can.

Or maybe a system that has a copy-on-write setup, so I can "save" my system before I do anything dangerous or stupid, like installing Debian packages. >_>
I thought Synaptic had an Undo feature that allowed you to roll non-critical packages back. Additionally, if you right click a package, in a lot of cases it will allow to you install an older revision if you need to for compatibility reasons. You can also Force the uninstall of a broken package so you can install a proper one.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
mindlord said:
I thought Synaptic had an Undo feature that allowed you to roll non-critical packages back. Additionally, if you right click a package, in a lot of cases it will allow to you install an older revision if you need to for compatibility reasons. You can also Force the uninstall of a broken package so you can install a proper one.
In theory, yes.
In practice, no.
It's often the case that the uninstall scripts in a deb don't remove everythign they installed, and there are also some debs that modify files etc without rolling back their changes when uninstalling. There are thus cases when the DEB system just breaks because of a faulty package.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
It's hardly Ubuntu's fault if the user goes outside the repos and installs something from another Distro that could break the install. Ubuntu might do well by making it a bit more apparent that what you're about to do is extremely bad for the stability of your system, and you ought think twice about it. But, as we all know, Average End Users rarely heed warnings of impending doom.

I think that it's a strength of Linux, not a weakness. In that a determined enough person can go that far to break their install.

Additionally, a determined enough person could fix the config files mangled by the bad package back to default for their distro and reinstall a proper package without reinstalling the whole OS. Try that with a MS product.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
well on ArchLinux all the packages you install are optionally kept in a cache in /var so you can easily roll back if something borks up

The reason stuff breaks when installing from another distro on ubuntu is the sheer amount of hacks they apply instead of getting the upstream version working for everybody .... It isn't that the stuff you are installing is broken it is that Ubuntu is broken XD


Debian stable or testing is probably the best distro all around once installed and I say that without having used many rpm distros (some CentOS... I felt the package manager was wonky as well)


There was talk by someone of an ARM port of Arch... (http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=59638)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Yes, and there seem to be files like scripts and confs that have multiple packages altering them.
And, SURPRISE! Now you have ... multiple alterations! And you don't know who the hell did them, or what to delete to uninstall something.

And I was installing Debian's PA because:
1. My PA was making a strange clicking noise whenever I tried to write clients for it
2. Debian's PA was newer
3. I thought, "Ubuntu can install deb packages, right?"
4. I thought that after nearly a year of using GNU/Linux variants as my main operating systems, I would know jack about them. Course, I spent a decade or so on Windows, even more clueless.

Yes, Ubuntu does have LVM, but I don't know what it is, so I've always skipped it.
I think I'm moving to Debian soon, though. I want to try this "rolling release" business, where the system keeps itself up to date without letting me break it.
Gobolinux's package management is almost more of a pain because it feels like it's all manual, but there I can at least expect it to be organized a little.

edit: /var/cache/apt definitely has a bunch of packages in it, but it seems to just be the ones that I installed, not the defaults.
I'll go take this issue to an Ubuntu site, now...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
@lulzfish using a rolling release like Arch require you pay attention to things as they get updated more than on say Ubuntu or Debian where they updates are pretty stable an tested for everybody ... for instance the when LXDE got updated back in December on Arch my menus went bye-bye even after installing a package update that claimed to fix it... that is where enabling the package cache comes in... you should learn how to manually remove and roll back packages from it... comes in real handy if some package breaks

heh.. i guess debian Sid/Sidux could be considered a rolling release as well if you wanted to keep apt since you already know it
 
lulzfish said:
Yes, and there seem to be files like scripts and confs that have multiple packages altering them.
And, SURPRISE! Now you have ... multiple alterations! And you don't know who the hell did them, or what to delete to uninstall something.

And I was installing Debian's PA because:
(1) 1. My PA was making a strange clicking noise whenever I tried to write clients for it
2. Debian's PA was newer
3. I thought, "Ubuntu can install deb packages, right?"
4. I thought that after nearly a year of using GNU/Linux variants as my main operating systems, I would know jack about them. Course, I spent a decade or so on Windows, even more clueless.

Yes, Ubuntu does have LVM, but I don't know what it is(2), so I've always skipped it.
I think I'm moving to Debian soon, though(3). I want to try this "rolling release" business, where the system keeps itself up to date without letting me break it.
Gobolinux's package management is almost more of a pain because it feels like it's all manual, but there I can at least expect it to be organized a little.(4)

edit: /var/cache/apt definitely has a bunch of packages in it, but it seems to just be the ones that I installed, not the defaults.
I'll go take this issue to an Ubuntu site, now...


(1) Edit your "/etc/pulse/daemon.conf"-file and increase your "default-fragment-size-msec"(remove the ";" before the line if neccessary), so you have a larger sound buffer. I have "default-fragments = 16" and "default-fragment-size-msec = 4" but I have a good sound card with hardware buffers, so I can have such small values.

(2) It's a system for partition handling and backups. Youc an create a new partition without resizing others etc, and you can resize partitions, even while they are mounted. You can also make snapshots of partitions in seconds. Very handy :p

(3) Why debian? AFAIK they have even older packags than Ubuntu in most cases...

(4) Yes, it's a PITA, I tried it.

If it's cutting-edge technology you want, try Fedora (10; 11 is unstable) (that's one of the reasons why I use it; newest technology without stuff breaking all over the place) or go for Arch or similar. If you're into the really cutting-edge stuff, go Gentoo or (to make things less difficult) Sabayon.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Try em all.

Debian is on my desktop (sid)/server (lenny) machines, and Ubuntu is on my laptop. Learn to do things the Debian/Ubuntu way and things don't break.

Gentoo's great but I stopped having the time to mess around with it a long time ago :)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
My Pulseaudio plays back fine except when I'm the one writing a client for it, I can't imagine why.
I'd like a distro that gives me the option to install newer versions occasionally, as opposed to Ubuntu where it seems you dump it every 6 months / 2 years and start over.

I'll have to try LVM, since I don't need the graphical installer anymore, and I think the server CDs come with that and some other fun stuff like Apache.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
OK, some heads-up when you install on LVM:
1. Make a separate /boot-partition; otherwise you can't boot
2. Make one big physical LVM partition, not many
3. leave some space on the physical LVM partition (don't fill it up with regular partitions, but leave some space so that you can expand)

I'd also like to try a rolling-release distro, but one where you have binary packages (I don't enjoy waiting when I install stuff) and loads of 'em (I've written very many RPM spec files in my life just because so many things only exist as source distributions),

So far, Fedora has been my choice, since they aways release the newest things for their distro (they don't usually save up changes for their 6-month release but release things as the time goes by (we got kde4.2 as it came out, and not in May as the case would be if they would have waited for their 6-month release))

But any other recommendations? I want to try arch but am for some reason not looking forward to it because it's so minimalist.
 
'lulzfish' said:
My Pulseaudio plays back fine except when I'm the one writing a client for it, I can't imagine why.
And your first instinct was that there was a problem with PulseAudio? No offense intended, but that's quite the leap in logic.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
'lulzfish' said:
I'd like a distro that gives me the option to install newer versions occasionally, as opposed to Ubuntu where it seems you dump it every 6 months / 2 years and start over.
I can't speak for Ubuntu proper, but Kubuntu certainly lets me know when a new version of the distribution is available and is quite happy to upgrade the existing setup without needing to dump anything or needing to start over. :p (Or am I completely misunderstanding you?)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Sorry, I meant new versions of software, not new versions of the OS.
I don't want to wait 6 months and then suddenly have new software, and then another 6 months of stagnation.

As for PulseAudio, yes, but I thought that since I was using the Simple API, there was a glitch that wasn't an issue with the regular API, and maybe updating would fix it. PulseAudio is only barely 'adequately' documented, and all the 3rd-party websites on Google are either people complaining about it, liking how it fixes everything, complaining that it's trying to do too much, or telling you how to un-install it.

I might try Fedora, but I've already gotten used to the Debian-based packaging stuff.
I think I actually tried to install Debian from my hard disk once [I got lazy a while back and found a way to boot LiveCDs without actually burning them] but it didn't detect my hard drive and it failed to install.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
'U.S.Soldier' said:
Bring what up points of people showing fanboism???? Thats why and you are starting to become annoying like you are an expert and I have no knowledge about linux its cool man its cool....
no, bringing up windows 7 and osx.
'javaJake' said:
And that's a problem? The vast majority don't want to learn how their computer works, they just want it to work. Ubuntu is all about being a system that Just Works. Ubuntu is giving the vast majority what they want.
It's a problem because when something goes wrong the vast majority don't know how to fix their own computer and we re-start the windows complex. It may 'just work', but at what cost? (see 'ugly hacks'& whatnot previously mentioned)
'javaJake' said:
You don't like it? Don't use Ubuntu. That's the beauty of Linux, after all, right? ;)

Exactly =D
'dflemstr' said:
So far, Fedora has been my choice, since they aways release the newest things for their distro...
But any other recommendations? I want to try arch but am for some reason not looking forward to it because it's so minimalist.
Fedorians unite! =D I've been looking forward to playing around with moblin once that gets improved a bit & the clutter interface is perfected

On that note, fedora has an arm build which I hope to use as the base for a pandora-specific flavor: Pandora Fedora! (abbreviated PanFed =]) I've already started some work in the graphics department, but I'm waiting to get my panda before I go messing with the actual packages & whatnot.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
'dflemstr' said:
But any other recommendations? I want to try arch but am for some reason not looking forward to it because it's so minimalist.
I've used Kubuntu on my desktop and Debian on servers for a long time.

I'm going to have to get some distro on my laptop (I'm really starting to hate OS X), but Debian has old packages and Kubuntu is badly maintained (I want KDE). I'm looking at Fedora and Arch (perhaps Chakra).

It's still going to be painful because I can't completely get rid of OS X (testing, firmware upgrades) and it takes a lot of space. And because of broadcom. And very unusual hardware in general.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
'Consequence9' said:
On that note, fedora has an arm build which I hope to use as the base for a pandora-specific flavor: Pandora Fedora! (abbreviated PanFed =]) I've already started some work in the graphics department, but I'm waiting to get my panda before I go messing with the actual packages & whatnot.
I would be most interested to see that, I must say - best of luck with it. :D

I've wanted to try out Fedora for a while, but don't have a spare machine (well, not one that it would run on, anyway, I'm sure :p) to mess with it on. (I only have one modern computer which I need to be working at all times, so I don't mess with it enormously, as much as I would love to try out some stuff. :lol: )

(Also, though it's slightly off-topic, I also found this to be of interest and very much hope that something happens with it, as I've been wanting to test out FreeBSD as well. :p)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Back
Top