Dependencies overkill

Fenster

A bunch of people told me how great Amarok was, so I decided tonight to have a look at it. Bleh, is all I can say of the experience.

It was an absolute nightmare of dependencies, in short. Its a 2mb download. In the end I downloaded about 40mb of programs, due to dependencies, before I gave up as they were still asking for more. At one point, it went beyond annoying to plain rediculous, when kdemultimedia-devel (sp) requested that I download windows components.

In short, I'll say that its this sort of problem that keeps people away from Linux, sadly, great OS and all that it is. With Windows, I can download a program, run the installer, and be reasonably certain that it will run as advertised.

aidan_walsh

As far as I recall, you're using Fedora, aren't you? I think you're biggest problem here is that Fedora is Gnome by default. I'm not sure if KDE is even installed, never bothered to check as I prefer Gnome, to be honest...

OfflerCrocGod

emerge amarok

I'm sorry Fenster I was busy what were you saying ?

Fenster

doodle_sketch wrote:

As far as I recall, you're using Fedora, aren't you? I think you're biggest problem here is that Fedora is Gnome by default. I'm not sure if KDE is even installed, never bothered to check as I prefer Gnome, to be honest...

I use gnome, aye, and I prefer it, but I keep KDE up to date as a matter of course as many programs use its components.

OfflerCrocGod: ?

maxheadroom

Fenster wrote:

OfflerCrocGod: ?

He's bragging about Gentoo's superior package managment system.


And I agree. Portage rocks!

red vex

maxheadroom wrote:

He's bragging about Gentoo's superior package managment system.


And I agree. Portage rocks!

here here

a little off topic but does anybody use the masked version of skype on portage?

mneylon

Portage rocks??

How so? From what I've seen of people using it there doesn't seem to be a very sane version management system.

Stark

How's it better than apt or urpmi? (Urpmi in lastest Mandrake has facilities to automate dependancies when building).

OfflerCrocGod

Stark wrote:

How's it better than apt or urpmi? (Urpmi in lastest Mandrake has facilities to automate dependancies when building).

Portage has being doing that for a lot longer then Mandrakes urpmi. There are literally no problems ever ( !!! will I live to regret this statement ) with portage, it's flawless and easy to use

Fenster

Okay, I get the point, Redhat/Fedora stinks when it comes to dependencies.

However, my problem is that I don't really like KDE, but it seems that every other distro I tried is heavily biased towards it.

How does Debian and Gentoo fare in this regard?

rmacm

Fenster wrote:

Okay, I get the point, Redhat/Fedora stinks when it comes to dependencies.

I wouldn't say it stinks. I'm using fedora and have had no problems with dependencies so far I'm using yum to install packages and keep up to date. This takes care of all the dependency stuff for me.

maxheadroom

blacknight wrote:

Portage rocks??

How so? From what I've seen of people using it there doesn't seem to be a very sane version management system.

I've never had a dependency problem with my Gentoo system, which runs linux 24/7. I also run a mandrake partition dual booting with my windows machine. I've never NOT had an unresolvable dependency issue at some point with each version of Mandrake I've tried (from version 8.something right up to 10.0 Official). Something always gets horribly stuffed up and urpmi just gets tangled up in itself.

What do you mean by a version managment system? Something like this?

SLOT ?

Occasionally you need to have several versions of a software title installed at the same time to satisfy your system's dependencies. Whereas most distributions allow this by having their packages called to the version (such as freetype and freetype2) Portage uses the concept of SLOTs.

A SLOT is a (part of a) version number that tells Portage that all equally named packages with a different SLOT are able to coexist on the same system. Portage is able to track both branches of a certain package and update them if updates to the respective branches are available.

When you perform an update Portage will only automatically unmerge the old instance of a package if it uses the same SLOT. This is why kernel sources are never automatically unmerged as their SLOT is the complete version.

maxheadroom

Fenster wrote:

However, my problem is that I don't really like KDE, but it seems that every other distro I tried is heavily biased towards it.

How does Debian and Gentoo fare in this regard?

In Gentoo, you don't even have to install X if you don't want to

To have a system where packages are compiled without KDE extensions / support and with GNOME extensions / support you'd add this to your use flags (use flags are what gentoo uses to alter any customisable aspects of packages you install): -qt -kde +gtk +gtk2 +gnome. Have a look here for a good explanation of the USE flag system in Gentoo.

tomk

Fenster wrote:

How does Debian and Gentoo fare in this regard?

Debian does not favour any particular DE - you can go for which ever you prefer. I use xfce4.

It's probably worth mentioning that Debian does not have an amarok package yet - I expect they'll wait a bit to let it stabilise some more. I'm sure an unofficial package will turn up any day now, though.

<edit>

Actually, a bit more digging and there it is - http://www.kalyxo.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/AmaroK

tomk

Fenster wrote:

In short, I'll say that its this sort of problem that keeps people away from Linux, sadly, great OS and all that it is.

You're entitled to your opinion here, of course, but I think you're letting one unfortunate incident with one distro colour your opinion of Linux in general. Offler has already hinted at the relative ease of installation in Gentoo, and for a Debian user like myself, I just added the details for the unofficial package (above) to my system, and selected the package to install using apt - or more precisely, synaptic, an apt gui. Dependencies were automatically handled, and my total download will be 23.7MB whenever I decide to go ahead with it. When that time comes, I will be more than "reasonably certain that it will run as advertised".

So rather than trash Linux because of one problem with Fedora, why not try another distro? You might like it!

I'm currently trying out Arch Linux as well - the package manager there is called pacman, and it's pretty good with dependencies too. I'll let you know how amarok works out there.

Fenster

Actually I've tried a few, in fairness. Only Fedora has really shown the aesthetic I like in an OS, odd as this sounds, and its the only one so far that I've gotten up and running to my preferences without beating my head off the wall several times.

rmacm

Fenster wrote:

Actually I've tried a few, in fairness. Only Fedora has really shown the aesthetic I like in an OS, odd as this sounds, and its the only one so far that I've gotten up and running to my preferences without beating my head off the wall several times.

Have you got DSL?? Are you using yum or apt for rpm to install or update stuff. I've been using fedora for a while now and I'm well pleased with it. I'm using yum to install packages and keep things up to date. Never had any problems with it so far. I'm going to try Debian soon cause I fancy a change...

Cheers
Rory

Fenster

DSL and using yum. I added freshrpms tonight and got apt to boot.

nadir

portage in a few lines.

it reads params from a config file /etc/make.conf

this is my currect make.conf of my desktop machine.

---

USE="X dvd nvidia xv sdl opengl fbcon gtk kde gnome alsa php mmx mmx2 sse sse2 svga xvid aalib apache2 encode fftw ipv6 oggvorbisi gphoto2 gimpprint imagemagick gtk2 offensive scanner xmms"

CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"

CFLAGS="-march=pentium4 -O3 -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe -funroll-loops"

CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"

GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://194.117.158.29/mirrors/gentoo&quot;

---

If any program i install has optional support for any of those USE flags, it will be built in.
You can also see sse sse2 mmx mmx2 chips optomisations. Believe me it make a big difference in speed especially for stuff like encoding and number crunching in general.
I have rather simple compiler flags, but again using the all the chip functionality. Note i dont have a HT p4.

Portage supports thousands off appliactaions all catagorised you can view them on http://www.gentoo-portage.com/

It also supports reverse dependancies, and a special application for keeping the all troublesome python libs in tow.
packages are constantly updated as they are released, including cvs access and beta apps (masked).
as maxheadroom was saying you can install different versions of applications,

ls /usr/portage/sys-devel/gcc/
ChangeLog gcc-3.2.3-r4.ebuild gcc-3.3.2-r4.ebuild gcc-3.3.3-r5.ebuild gcc-3.3.4-r1.ebuild
Manifest gcc-3.3.1-r5.ebuild gcc-3.3.2-r5.ebuild gcc-3.3.3-r6.ebuild gcc-3.3.ebuild
files gcc-3.3.2-r1.ebuild gcc-3.3.2-r7.ebuild gcc-3.3.3.ebuild gcc-3.4.1-r2.ebuild
gcc-2.95.3-r8.ebuild gcc-3.3.2-r2.ebuild gcc-3.3.2.ebuild gcc-3.3.3_pre20040408-r1.ebuild gcc-3.4.1.ebuild
gcc-3.1.1-r2.ebuild gcc-3.3.2-r3.ebuild gcc-3.3.3-r3.ebuild gcc-3.3.3_pre20040426.ebuild metadata.xml

so all those versions are officially supported, to install a slotted package one could

emerge =sys-devel/gcc-3.3.3-r3

Some other basic/nice features of portage are ............
to get the latest package list : 'emerge sync'
to install anything : 'emerge application-name'
all packages are stored in a world file, if you want to update the entire computer you do 'emerge -uD world'
There are loads of other tweaks and such, but basically it hardly ever breaks, and if it does it's almost always due to people putting in rediculous c flags.

If there ever is a real issue, its always sorted immediately, and patches sent out, the Forums also troubleshoot 'everything'. I have never been 'stuck'

There is no preference in gentoo towards any setup, like debian you install what you want when you want, as said earlier, if you dont want X , dont install it, you could for example put -x11(-xorg) in your use flags, that would prevent portage from installing it as a dependancy.

Like we said before, compiling takes time, but when you got chips as powerfull as these its pretty fast

man I'm such a fanboy

Fenster

Having seen apt-get and its gui front for Fedora, Synaptic, I'm forced to take back my earlier rant. I'm incredibly impressed by what it can do.

tomk

Glad to hear it, Fenster.

And sure aren't we all entitled to a rant every now and then?

tomk

tomk wrote:

I'm currently trying out Arch Linux as well - the package manager there is called pacman, and it's pretty good with dependencies too. I'll let you know how amarok works out there.

So pacman is now chewing his way though the amarok install on Arch - currently on the download stage, at the customary 52KB/s. Here's the dependency list:

docbook-xml-4.1.2-2
libgpg-error-0.7-1
libgcrypt-1.1.94-1
libxslt-1.1.10-1
scrollkeeper-0.3.14-1
gnome-common-2.4.0-5
gstreamer-0.8.5-1
audiofile-0.2.6-1
qt-3.3.3-3
libmad-0.15.1b-1
libogg-1.1-1
libvorbis-1.0.1-1
esd-0.2.34-1
arts-1.3.0-1
pcre-4.5-2
libart-lgpl-2.3.16-1
fam-2.6.10-4
openldap-2.2.15-1
libidn-0.5.0-1
kdelibs-3.3.0-1
cdparanoia-9.8-4
lame-3.96.1-1
flac-1.1.0-4
musicbrainz-2.1.1-2
tunepimp-0.3.0-2
taglib-1.3-1
sdl-1.2.7-2
libmng-1.0.6-1
codecs-20040706-1
libtheora-1.0alpha3-1
xine-lib-1rc5-4
libsndfile-1.0.9-1
libsamplerate-0.1.1-1
kdemultimedia-3.3.0-1
amarok-1.0.2-1

Fairly long, but that's because my Arch install is fairly minimal so far. I don't know how many total MBs it is - one of my pet peeves with pacman, when compared to Debian's apt - but I'm not expecting any problems.

Fenster

tomk wrote:

So pacman is now chewing his way though the amarok install on Arch - currently on the download stage, at the customary 52KB/s. Here's the dependency list:

docbook-xml-4.1.2-2
libgpg-error-0.7-1
libgcrypt-1.1.94-1
libxslt-1.1.10-1
scrollkeeper-0.3.14-1
gnome-common-2.4.0-5
gstreamer-0.8.5-1
audiofile-0.2.6-1
qt-3.3.3-3
libmad-0.15.1b-1
libogg-1.1-1
libvorbis-1.0.1-1
esd-0.2.34-1
arts-1.3.0-1
pcre-4.5-2
libart-lgpl-2.3.16-1
fam-2.6.10-4
openldap-2.2.15-1
libidn-0.5.0-1
kdelibs-3.3.0-1
cdparanoia-9.8-4
lame-3.96.1-1
flac-1.1.0-4
musicbrainz-2.1.1-2
tunepimp-0.3.0-2
taglib-1.3-1
sdl-1.2.7-2
libmng-1.0.6-1
codecs-20040706-1
libtheora-1.0alpha3-1
xine-lib-1rc5-4
libsndfile-1.0.9-1
libsamplerate-0.1.1-1
kdemultimedia-3.3.0-1
amarok-1.0.2-1

Fairly long, but that's because my Arch install is fairly minimal so far. I don't know how many total MBs it is - one of my pet peeves with pacman, when compared to Debian's apt - but I'm not expecting any problems.

Ouch, those dependencies are just..ouch. I'm glad I gave up on Amarok.
:eek:

maxheadroom

why does it list gnome-common-2.4.0-5 as a dependency? For a KDE based audio player? Is it because of gstreamer?

tomk

Yep.

nadir

I hear amarok uses ARTS, is his correct??
is there no other output plugin?
if not is that not reason enough not to use it?
you could try the cvs of beep-media-player , or if you like itunes try rhythmbox
Ive been looking at madman and alsaplayer.
I think alsaplayer is my fav, Im currently not really happy with any media player for linux, but it seems to be an area thats in high development at the moment, which is good.

pickarooney

I grabbed an RPM for amarok and it installed in one swift go. Then a while later with a clean system I tried to do the same thing, but it just would not work (gstreamer dependencies were impossible to resolve). On the Amarok IRC channel, the developers were very, very hepful and patient and I got it all installed eventually. Unfortunately, it doesn't use ALSA and the sound is all skippy and cack, so I wiped it within 10 minutes. Maybe when they get their act together it will be a good program, but for the moment Zinf does the trick.
Amarok lists ALSA support as a priority for an upcoming release, but when I asked them they admitted it was nowhere near ready, and may never be.

nadir

im going to try writing my own with sdl and maybe openal.
I wrote most of the gui yesterday, and its skinable,some more stuff to touch up, then ill get onto the sound and mixing, Ill try to build in native mp3 and vorbis support, and make an mplayer plugin for videos.
O_o

Fenster

What repositories are out there for synaptic/apt? Freshrpms is great, but the site is a little out of date.

pickarooney

nadir wrote:

im going to try writing my own with sdl and maybe openal.
I wrote most of the gui yesterday, and its skinable,some more stuff to touch up, then ill get onto the sound and mixing, Ill try to build in native mp3 and vorbis support, and make an mplayer plugin for videos.
O_o

Sweeeet!