Re: Planet CCRMA

["Bryan J.Smith" <b.j.smith@ieee.org>]

Kyle Pointer wrote:
> I prefer to use Freshrpms

Ack!

> and livna for my Fedora Core installation.

I'm a Fedora Extras + Livna guy.
I don't trust FreshRPMS or DAG, and both have caused me grief in the 
past.
Even when not using Fedora Extras (FreshRPMS bit me hard, which is the 
only reason I looked at the Fedora Project before the Red Hat switch).

BTW, now that I have an x86-64 desktop, I've stopped using Apt 
altogether.

Steven was right - even Apt for FC3 doesn't address tapping both i386 
and x86-64.
It only worked for me prior because I was maintaining the repository 
internally for servers (almost entirely x86-64) - where I directly mixed 
the packages.
Now that I need to mix i386 and x86-64 for desktops, I quickly ran back 
to YUM.  :-)

BTW, is there any reason Red Hat is shipping Firefox x86-64 with FC3 
x86-64?
I spent 2 hours testing plug-ins and the *all* failed.
I grabbed Firefox i386(and moxplugger i386) by temporarily adding the 
i386 repository and typing "yum install firefox.i386."

Now *everything* works - Acrobat 7, Java 1.5, FlashPlayer and even 
HelixPlayer i386, which is the included version with FC3 x86-64 no less.
So why isn't Firefox i386 included instead of Firefox x86-64.

BTW, RealPlayer 10 i586 doesn't work - at least not once I pull up a 
.ram file, it segfaults at "buffering" (regardless of how it is 
launched).
So there is yet some i386 library dependency that FC3 x86-64 doesn't 
have for it.

Otherwise, FC3 x86-64 is extremely well balanced between a majority of 
x86-64 libraries (/lib64), and the few i386 libraries (/lib) that are 
needed for legacy apps.
All the older games I threw at it last night worked, as well as UT2004 
x86-64.

> ( recently kicked out gentoo ( although I still like gentoo )

I prefer "ports" distros like Gentoo for small footprint or 
application-specific solutions.

>  ( fedora just makes more since for what I do ) )

I could only imagine the PITA it would be to build Gentoo on x86-64, 
then figure out what i386 libs are still needed.
Or does portage make assumptions to such (I haven't tried it 
personally).

> I get all the multimedia packages I need. And with the addition of the 
> "Official" Extras repository for Fedora Core there's not much missing 
> as far as I am concerned.

Exactly.

People complain that "legally anal", "packages" distros like Debian and 
Fedora require an extra step for multimedia.
But it's nice for those of us who have to certify our Linux installs are 
100 legal software.  :-)

Of course, with "ports" distros, you fetch direct from the source.
So that also solves some of the redistribution issues of "packages" 
distros.

BTW, Gentoo users who claim their multimedia and games run faster 
because of optimizations don't know the first thing about how such apps 
are actually built.
The "packages" distros just build for all extensions.
The "ports" distros only build a smaller footprint.

It's like comparing a modified street racer to a Corvette.
Just because the Corvette is big and heavy doesn't mean it doesn't have 
the raw torque to take on a street racer.
And it will be a better vehicle for other environments than the street 
racer, which is specifically built against one need.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org
Currently Mobile   Treo 600

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