From: "John Stoffel" <john@stoffel.org>
An urge to 'Let's tinker' is both a good and bad thing for a SysAdmin to have.
Keith> Did he say he was a studly-cap SysAdmin? Did I? And ok, I'll just spell it out. Systems Administrator. Happy now? Keith> I missed that. I took him to be talking about his own Keith> computer. If there aren't too many users paying the bills, Keith> then the Linux Way is to tinker. Sure, absolutely. No arguement there. But if you are doing SysAdmin type work, then IMNSHO it's pointless to obsess over things like this.
... I don't think you're going to find one that makes you happy.
Keith> Maybe not one distribution, but maybe one or another package Keith> manager will look good. Learn to build your own package. I am Keith> not too familiar with all of them, but RPM builds packages from Keith> pristine source and then you can install from the package Keith> without the source, but you can always get the source version. I've done some work with RPM and .deb packages and both have learning curves. Not terrible, but curves none-the-less. And it's a good learning experience because it shows you all the details you do need to look out for when packaging something to be easily installed, upgraded and de-installed. 90% of all code is bounds and error checking. :] Which is boring and not fun to write and test, but vital for a successful package. Keith> The package is at its core a way to keep track of what you did Keith> to build it. You start Linux from Scratch, but when it comes Keith> time to put it on new hardware, you don't start over from Keith> scratch.
The urge to cleanup is nice, but counter productive unless your on an embedded device which can't handle all the excess libraries.
Keith> I will refrain from waxing on making and cleaning of messes, Keith> bloat, and the cause of all our grievances. You mistake my arguements. I'm not arguing that bloat is good, I'm arguing that trying to compulsively shrink a system might not be a good use of time/resources. But it depends. Keith> The more package builders had Alexander's attitude the fewer Keith> SysAdmins would have Alexander's problem. Well, it's also GUI toolkits, GUI designers who can't/won't pack information into a smaller display area, etc. I don't have the time to writeup a diatrabe here, so I'll just drop it now. :] John