Very Computer

When I first joined COLA, I noticed mjcr's sig line, which says, "I use
Linux, no *y Red Hat..."  I always liked that.  I started with a
distro, SuSE 7.3, to ease myself in, but have always aimed at learning
LINUX instead of learning a DISTRO.

So let's say I've got SuSE all over the place here at home, I don't want to
reinstall another distro, but I'd like to use apt-get, amongst other
things.  A hopeful "which apt-get" comes up empty, su and try again and
still empty, so first guess is SuSE Don't Play That.

Since this is all on the home system, no paycheck depending on getting it
right or meeting a deadline, I'd be happy to take longer grafting tools
from another distro into what I have, as this *should* enhance my knowledge
of Linux itself and the tools, which is what I am after.

Any comments, suggestions?
--
Ken
Linux, the more you learn, the more you love

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<snip bit about not using any distro as per mjcr's sig>

Quote:> Since this is all on the home system, no paycheck depending on getting it
> right or meeting a deadline, I'd be happy to take longer grafting tools
> from another distro into what I have, as this *should* enhance my knowledge
> of Linux itself and the tools, which is what I am after.

> Any comments, suggestions?

The example you have, namely apt-get, was probably the worst you could
have selected, since package management is the thing which is singularly
distribution dependent.  Some distros, like slack, rely on the admin to
do most of the dependency tracking by hand, the gentoo type seem to be
heading for more the BSD approach (Terry, Doug could probably add more
to this), Suse, Red Hat, Debian etc., have very comprehensive package
management systems of their own.

At the base of package management is the database of what's on the
system.  This is the bit which contains all the hooks for things like
apt-get to work.

I would suggest that if you want to migrate towards a self-built distro,
you've three options ahead.  One would be to start building source packages
of whatever it is you want to add on your existing Suse system.  You can
then at least tailor them for your hardware.  If you build them into
Suse RPMs then you can continue to use your current package management
system.  Two would be to look at the Gentoo 'source' distribution and
build that.  Three would be to read the Linux From Scratch howto and
try that.

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--
            |  Mark Kent   --   Take out the ham to mail me.  |
A visit to a fresh place will bring strange work.

<snip>

yes, package management is probably the one thing to benefit most from
centralization/standardization.  There might be a tool to let you
'import' other package types, but I don't know how far that goes.

The conceptual differences between distros (and package managers) are
pretty superficial IMHO.  The basic task of managing dependencies is
always there, mostly it's just the commands names (rpm / apt-get / dpkg)
and their switches that vary.

If you do want to learn different distros, I'd think it more convenient to
install a different one on each computer, or multiboot between them,
than to mish-mash them together.