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<TITLE>The Answer Guy 48: Euphoria</TITLE>
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<H4>"The Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"</H4>
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<H4>By James T. Dennis,
<a href="mailto:linux-questions-only@ssc.com">linux-questions-only@ssc.com</a><BR>
LinuxCare,
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<H3 align="left"><img src="../../gx/dennis/qbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(?) " border="0"
>Euphoria</H3>
<p><strong>From Greg Phillips on Tue, 12 Oct 1999
</strong></p>
<!-- ::
Euphoria
~~~~~~~~
:: -->
<P><STRONG>
I've been using Doslinux for quite some time now, and am quite
impressed. Unfortunately, Kent Robotti doesn't answer his email, it
seems =)
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
I'm a member of a mailing list, which pertains to Euphoria. No, not
intense joy, but a relatively new and unknown programming language.
While the number of users is small, we're very passionate about
Euphoria. Recently, a linux version was released, and many users wanted
to use it. A fair chunk of them were hesitant to repartition their
hardrive and install a new OS, so I recommended Doslinux. While it
worked well for some users, others had trouble installing Euphoria, and
other applications. This was no fault of their own: Doslinux
documentation is a little bit skimpy, if you're new to Linux and don't
know where to look. Being the resident Doslinux veteran, I was soon
flooded with questions (How do I install X? How can I get <A HREF="http://www.kde.org/">KDE</A> to run?
How do I log in? Why doesn't this work?). So I opted to make a CD for
the Eu community, with Doslinux, all the extras (gcc, x, kde or gnome,
euphoria, etc.) already installed. Unfortunately this proved to be a
lot of work. Trying to stuff a bunch of software into a pre-made
distribution was getting to be painful.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
So, after some reading, experimenting, etc., I decided to create
EuLinux. The same idea as Doslinux, but customized towards Euphoria
users. So, here's my question: How?
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
I've read everything I can get my eyes on, and, as I understand
it, this is how DOSLinux works in a nutshell:
It uses a loopback filesystem as the root device.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
To install the whole system, a ramdisk device is mounted, which is used
to create an empty file of a fixed size on the dos partition.
The linux system can then be copied into that empty file, which can be
booted with LOADLIN.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
I know there's a lot more to that, but I hope I've got the basics
correct.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Am I right? Can you point me to some documentation? Is it even worth
trying?
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Thank you,
Greg Phillips
</STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="../../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
Well, it certainly sounds like an interesting
and worthwhile project. However, I might suggest
a slightly different approach.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
It would be nice if <A HREF="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</A> could be installed
on a FAT filesystem (sort of a blend of DOSLinux and
Debian). Then you could create a Debian package
(and an RPM). This would make Euphoria accessible
to most Linux users with a minimum of fuss while
make DOSLinux capable of installing a very large number
of well-maintained packages.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
I suggest the DOSLinux/Debian merge for a couple of
reasons.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
First Debian has more packages that <A HREF="http://www.redhat.com/">Red Hat</A>, <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/">S.u.S.E.</A> etc.
Many Debian packages are smaller and more focused, while Red
Hat tends to put more stuff in a given package. That leads
to coarser dependency granularity for Red Hat.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Also Debian has developed "virtual packages" and
"alternatives" which allow for more choices without having
to work around the dependency/conflict management features
of its packaging system. (For example in Debian some
packages depend on "MTA" which is a virtual package that can
be provided by exim, sendmail, qmail, etc).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Debian packages tend to "fit together" a bit better than
those from Red Hat and other RPM distributions. Debian are
hundreds of volunteer maintainers. Many of those maintainers
tend to more proactively patch the base sources and feed their
patches "upstream" (to the program authors). They seem to
have closer ties between their package maintainers and the
software authors (probably since there are so many
maintainers, so each can afford a bit more time on the few
packages that each one maintains).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Meanwhile Red Hat, <A HREF="http://www.caldera.com/">Caldera</A>, S.u.S.E., TurboLinux and other
distribution maintainers each have a smaller number of
professional developers. The various RPM distributions tend
not to have compatible package dependencies and they
duplicate quite a bit of the packaging effort.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Keep in mind that the core software among all of these is
mostly the same. The differences show up in packaging,
dependency and conflict management, and configuration tools.
Debian package configuration mostly falls into the "it's
ugly but it works" model --- where a package might prompt
for one to five answers (with reasonable defaults). This
is done basically as a simple list of "echo/read" (shell
script) questions. It's not pretty, but it is elegant and
minimal --- and it works better than linuxconf.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
(Don't get me started about linuxconf. I've banned that
from my systems until further notice!)
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
So, that's what I'd like to see. A DOSLinux that could be
used as the base system for a Debian system. (For that
matter any improvement to the Debian bases system install
would be welcome. It's a really good system once you get
it up --- but that first step is still a bit of a doozy.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
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<H5 align="center"><a href="http://www.linuxgazette.com/copying.html"
>Copyright ©</a> 1999, James T. Dennis
<BR>Published in <I>The Linux Gazette</I> Issue 48 December 1999</H5>
<H6 ALIGN="center">HTML transformation by
<A HREF="mailto:star@starshine.org">Heather Stern</a> of
Starshine Technical Services,
<A HREF="http://www.starshine.org/">http://www.starshine.org/</A>
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