[techtalk] ICU troubles

Dan Nguyen nguyend7 at cse.msu.edu
Fri Feb 18 22:03:41 EST 2000


On Fri, Feb 18, 2000 at 07:17:31PM -0600, Robert Kiesling wrote:
> 
> Telsa Gwynne <hobbit at aloss.ukuu.org.uk> wrote:
> > 
> > I'm told that less bandwidth is not actually the major reason for
> > the package/package-devel split: it's much more for the people who
> > simply won't ever want or need to build new things and will only
> > be getting the occasional (binary) RPM when security updates come
> > out (if that, ahem). They just don't need any of the devel stuff.
> 
> I think the main reason is to keep the stable code in a separate 
> package from the development code.  Having two separate versions
> makes maintenance much easier.

I think your mistaken about "develepment" code.  Lets say you have
package libfoo.  This package will only include dynamic libraries.
And minimal documentation.  The package libfoo-dev or libfoo-devel is
not the unstable development code, but rather the files required to
build the programs which depend on it.  Generally both the package and
devel package are created at the same time, it's just the files which
would be normally installed via `make install` is split up between
multiple rpms or debs

> > I don't know whether the other RPM-using distributions make this
> > distinction between package and package-devel. But it is really really
> > useful, both for small machines where you are not going to build and
> > you have disk issues; and for crappy connections where you're paying
> > per minute.
> 
> I'm not a Red Hat fan, so I couldn't say.  Caldera seems to be 
> mostly compatible.  I could probably install a developer's 
> version with no trouble.  Debian Gnu/Linux also uses the 
> stable/devel split.

Debian GNU/Linux's stable/unstable split is not the same as the
library split.  The stable/unstable is to make sure there is a version
of the distribution which is known to work well.


-- 
       Dan Nguyen          | It is with true love as it is with ghosts;
    nguyend7 at msu.edu       | everyone talks of it, but few have seen it.
     dnn at debian.org        |               -Maxime De La Rochefoucauld
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