Re: [Caml-list] OCaml on Debian or Ububtu (reprise)

Re: [Caml-list] OCaml on Debian or Ububtu (reprise)

[Chad Perrin]

On Sun, Dec 17, 2006 at 07:28:52PM +0100, Philippe Wang wrote:
> Bill Wood wrote :
> >Rats!  I fat-fingered the original post with this subject big time; my
> >apologies.  Of course, I'm interested in asking this community about
> >OCaml on Debian or Ubuntu.
> >
> >Again, apologies for the mixup.
> 
> I don't think you should choose your linux distrib just because of that...
> 
> Ubuntu and Debian don't aim the same kind of users.

That's definitely true.  For instance, Ubuntu aims to make it easier to
get started, while Debian aims to make getting started fit your
preferences more exactly; Ubuntu is more for people who want everything
to "just work" from the very beginning, while Debian is more for people
who want everything to "just keep working" once you get it working in
the first place; Ubuntu better serves those who want the most common
software available all the time by default without any effort, while
Debian better serves those who want the widest range of software to
choose from, and do not mind having to choose from amongst those options
to get precisely what they want; Ubuntu tends to better suit people who
don't want to have to think about security at all, while Debian tends to
better suit people who want the best security configuration they can
get, and are willing to spend time tweaking the system to suit their
needs; Ubuntu generally provides more cutting-edge software than the
more stable release branches of Debian, while Debian generally provides
better tested package compatibility and more edge-case software to suit
uncommon needs; et cetera.

Some of this may apply to OCaml, and how you intend to make use of
OCaml.  For instance, assuming strong support for OCaml in both Ubuntu
and Debian, Ubuntu is likely to get new versions of OCaml tools,
libraries, and parsers more quickly than the main Debian release
branches (Stable and Testing, specifically), while with Debian they're
likely to be more stable when first introduced.  Also, while wholly new
tools related to OCaml development will be more likely to be eventually
included in Debian, they'll typically show up more quickly in Ubuntu (if
they show up at all).


> 
> On both, there are many OCaml users and there is no reason why one would 
> be worse for OCaml.
> 
> However, maybe Ubuntu community is more active now as it is _the_ fast 
> spreading linux distribution !

More active?  Are you sure about that?  It sees greater growth rates,
but it'll need to see the same disparity in growth rates in
knowledgeable people for years to approach the size and richness of the
Debian community.  It's huge -- by far the largest Linux distribution
community in existence -- and the community tends toward a higher
average level of technical expertise specifically because the two
distributions are (as you say) aimed at different types of users.


> 
> Make your choice for other reasons, like file systems (debian only 
> supports ext2 ext3 and reiserfs when you install it, while ubuntu 
> supports more FSs...)

I'm afraid you must not be very familiar with the current state of
affairs in Debian.  For the last three years, I've been using XFS, from
a choice of more than a half-dozen different filesystem types, with
Debian installs.  JFS, FAT, and other filesystem types are also
available.


> 
> Well, maybe this mailing list is not the right place to ask such a 
> question ;-)

Sure it is.  His question was about OCaml support.  Both Debian and
Ubuntu support OCaml in their official package repositories.  It's a
good question, and now it's answered.

OCaml support in Debian is excellent.  It's rock-solid, in fact.  Ubuntu
tends to be a little bit less reliable in terms of its less-mainstream
packages, but that doesn't mean that its OCaml support is lacking -- I
haven't tried using OCaml on Ubuntu, so you'll have to get such
information from someone else.  As you (Philippe Wang) seem to indicate,
OCaml support is at least "good enough" in Ubuntu, in which case I agree
that choice of distribution should probably be based on some other factor
if the field of options before you is Ubuntu and Debian (though as I
pointed out above it's possible that the differences in Ubuntu and
Debian might still play a role in making the best choice).

-- 
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
Brian K. Reid: "In computer science, we stand on each other's feet."

Re: [Caml-list] OCaml on Debian or Ububtu (reprise)

[Philippe Wang]

Chad Perrin a écrit :

>> On both, there are many OCaml users and there is no reason why one would 
>> be worse for OCaml.
>>
>> However, maybe Ubuntu community is more active now as it is _the_ fast 
>> spreading linux distribution !
> 
> More active?  Are you sure about that?  It sees greater growth rates,
> but it'll need to see the same disparity in growth rates in
> knowledgeable people for years to approach the size and richness of the
> Debian community.  It's huge -- by far the largest Linux distribution
> community in existence -- and the community tends toward a higher
> average level of technical expertise specifically because the two
> distributions are (as you say) aimed at different types of users.

Well, I didn't mean to say which one was actually better.
Because none can be really better than the other as they are just different.

I am not sure if the Ubuntu community is actually more active. But there 
is a chance it is... I mean some Debian users switch to Ubuntu while 
Ubuntu users switching to Debian are less frequent. (Well, I guess, 
maybe it's not true at all, but it seems sensefull to me)

>> Make your choice for other reasons, like file systems (debian only 
>> supports ext2 ext3 and reiserfs when you install it, while ubuntu 
>> supports more FSs...)
> 
> I'm afraid you must not be very familiar with the current state of
> affairs in Debian.  For the last three years, I've been using XFS, from
> a choice of more than a half-dozen different filesystem types, with
> Debian installs.  JFS, FAT, and other filesystem types are also
> available.

I mean that when you take the default install CD, you don't have other 
choice but ext2, ext3 and reiserFS.
I really didn't mean one couldn't use another FS...

(but maybe I'm wrong... When I saw I could only use ext[2|3] and 
reiserFS at the prompt when I put the last debian CD (i don't know which 
version, but a 2006 version anyways) I just gave up the idea because I 
didn't want reiserFS and ext3 takes too much time to build)


>> Well, maybe this mailing list is not the right place to ask such a 
>> question ;-)
> 
> Sure it is.  His question was about OCaml support.  Both Debian and
> Ubuntu support OCaml in their official package repositories.  It's a
> good question, and now it's answered.

Well, if you say so...

> OCaml support in Debian is excellent.  It's rock-solid, in fact.  Ubuntu
> tends to be a little bit less reliable in terms of its less-mainstream
> packages, but that doesn't mean that its OCaml support is lacking -- I
> haven't tried using OCaml on Ubuntu, so you'll have to get such
> information from someone else.  As you (Philippe Wang) seem to indicate,
> OCaml support is at least "good enough" in Ubuntu, in which case I agree
> that choice of distribution should probably be based on some other factor
> if the field of options before you is Ubuntu and Debian (though as I
> pointed out above it's possible that the differences in Ubuntu and
> Debian might still play a role in making the best choice).

To me, it's quite weird to make the choice mainly because of OCaml 
support. I mean if Ubuntu and Debian have come to have the same score 
and OCaml support is goind to tell which one wins, it's really strange 
to me. But well, why not...
Still I believe the choice should be based on other distrib features.

Cheers,

--
Philippe Wang
   mail (at) philippewang.info

Re: [Caml-list] OCaml on Debian or Ububtu (reprise)

[Chad Perrin]

On Mon, Dec 18, 2006 at 02:13:20AM +0100, Philippe Wang wrote:
> Chad Perrin a écrit :
> 
> >I'm afraid you must not be very familiar with the current state of
> >affairs in Debian.  For the last three years, I've been using XFS, from
> >a choice of more than a half-dozen different filesystem types, with
> >Debian installs.  JFS, FAT, and other filesystem types are also
> >available.
> 
> I mean that when you take the default install CD, you don't have other 
> choice but ext2, ext3 and reiserFS.
> I really didn't mean one couldn't use another FS...
> 
> (but maybe I'm wrong... When I saw I could only use ext[2|3] and 
> reiserFS at the prompt when I put the last debian CD (i don't know which 
> version, but a 2006 version anyways) I just gave up the idea because I 
> didn't want reiserFS and ext3 takes too much time to build)

Every Debian install I've done since the new debian-installer was
adopted for Sarge while it was still in Testing has allowed custom
partitioning with any of a wide range of filesystems.  I suspect you are
either not using the default debian-installer or you are not configuring
the partitions with all the available tools if you are not aware of
other filesystems that are available at install time.


> 
> >OCaml support in Debian is excellent.  It's rock-solid, in fact.  Ubuntu
> >tends to be a little bit less reliable in terms of its less-mainstream
> >packages, but that doesn't mean that its OCaml support is lacking -- I
> >haven't tried using OCaml on Ubuntu, so you'll have to get such
> >information from someone else.  As you (Philippe Wang) seem to indicate,
> >OCaml support is at least "good enough" in Ubuntu, in which case I agree
> >that choice of distribution should probably be based on some other factor
> >if the field of options before you is Ubuntu and Debian (though as I
> >pointed out above it's possible that the differences in Ubuntu and
> >Debian might still play a role in making the best choice).
> 
> To me, it's quite weird to make the choice mainly because of OCaml 
> support. I mean if Ubuntu and Debian have come to have the same score 
> and OCaml support is goind to tell which one wins, it's really strange 
> to me. But well, why not...

I can understand it, to some degree, if one's purpose in choosing a
distribution for a given install is to have the best possible OCaml
development environment.


> Still I believe the choice should be based on other distrib features.

. . . but I tend to agree that there are a number of other, more
important reasons for choosing a distribution, most of the time.  Such
reasons have, in fact, caused me to mostly give up Debian in favor of
FreeBSD recently -- which also provides excellent OCaml support in its
ports tree.

-- 
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
Brian K. Reid: "In computer science, we stand on each other's feet."

Re: [Caml-list] OCaml on Debian or Ububtu (reprise)

[Julien Cristau]

On Sun, Dec 17, 2006 at 17:27:08 -0700, Chad Perrin wrote:

> Some of this may apply to OCaml, and how you intend to make use of
> OCaml.  For instance, assuming strong support for OCaml in both Ubuntu
> and Debian, Ubuntu is likely to get new versions of OCaml tools,
> libraries, and parsers more quickly than the main Debian release
> branches (Stable and Testing, specifically), while with Debian they're
> likely to be more stable when first introduced.  Also, while wholly new
> tools related to OCaml development will be more likely to be eventually
> included in Debian, they'll typically show up more quickly in Ubuntu (if
> they show up at all).
> 
I don't think that's true.
As far as I know, Ubuntu doesn't have any people involved in ocaml
packaging, so the ocaml-related packages in Ubuntu are just those taken
from Debian every few months.  I've yet to see a case where Ubuntu gets
a new version of an ocaml package more quickly than Debian.

Cheers,
Julien (member of the Debian OCaml maintainer team)

Re: [Caml-list] OCaml on Debian or Ububtu (reprise)

[Richard Jones]

On Mon, Dec 18, 2006 at 08:52:07PM +0100, Julien Cristau wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 17, 2006 at 17:27:08 -0700, Chad Perrin wrote:
> 
> > Some of this may apply to OCaml, and how you intend to make use of
> > OCaml.  For instance, assuming strong support for OCaml in both Ubuntu
> > and Debian, Ubuntu is likely to get new versions of OCaml tools,
> > libraries, and parsers more quickly than the main Debian release
> > branches (Stable and Testing, specifically), while with Debian they're
> > likely to be more stable when first introduced.  Also, while wholly new
> > tools related to OCaml development will be more likely to be eventually
> > included in Debian, they'll typically show up more quickly in Ubuntu (if
> > they show up at all).
> > 
> I don't think that's true.
> As far as I know, Ubuntu doesn't have any people involved in ocaml
> packaging, so the ocaml-related packages in Ubuntu are just those taken
> from Debian every few months.  I've yet to see a case where Ubuntu gets
> a new version of an ocaml package more quickly than Debian.

This is definitely true.  The Debian-ocaml-maint team does superb work
in bringing OCaml and a whole array of packages to Debian.  Ubuntu
"inherits" these packages, and sometimes they are broken, as for
instance they are right now in Ubuntu Edgy (incompatible versions of
various key libraries are installed, making building anything more
complex than a trivial program impossible).

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones, CTO Merjis Ltd.
Merjis - web marketing and technology - http://merjis.com
Internet Marketing and AdWords courses - http://merjis.com/courses - NEW!
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Re: [Caml-list] OCaml on Debian or Ububtu (reprise)

[David MENTRE]

Hello,

Richard Jones <rich@annexia.org> writes:

> This is definitely true.  The Debian-ocaml-maint team does superb work
> in bringing OCaml and a whole array of packages to Debian.

I heartly agree.

>  Ubuntu "inherits" these packages, and sometimes they are broken, as
> for instance they are right now in Ubuntu Edgy (incompatible versions
> of various key libraries are installed, making building anything more
> complex than a trivial program impossible).

Interesting to know. Have you reported such bugs to the Ubuntu project?
<Off-topic>I'm myself considering to move from Debian to Ubuntu because
the Debian project is now accepting non-free software in main, Debian is
no longer focused on Free Software[1] and at least Ubuntu take care of
end-users ("it just works").</Off-topic> But I still want to develop in
OCaml. :-)

Best wishes,
d.

Footnotes: 
[1]  http://www.us.debian.org/vote/2006/vote_004#outcome : "Further
     discussion" won! 

-- 
GPG/PGP key: A3AD7A2A David MENTRE <dmentre@linux-france.org>
 5996 CC46 4612 9CA4 3562  D7AC 6C67 9E96 A3AD 7A2A

Re: [Caml-list] OCaml on Debian or Ububtu (reprise)

[Richard Jones]

On Mon, Dec 18, 2006 at 10:55:52PM +0100, David MENTRE wrote:
> Interesting to know. Have you reported such bugs to the Ubuntu project?

No.  It's not a bug in Ubuntu, so much as a problem that they seem to
have exported an incorrect mix of packages, probably during one of
Debian-ocaml-maint's "upgrade the whole world" exercises between
3.09.1 and 3.09.2.  In any case you can fix the issue by upgrading to
the current testing version (Feisty).  If you're apt-pinning, that's
not too intrusive.

> <Off-topic>I'm myself considering to move from Debian to Ubuntu because
> the Debian project is now accepting non-free software in main, Debian is
> no longer focused on Free Software[1] and at least Ubuntu take care of
> end-users ("it just works").</Off-topic> But I still want to develop in
> OCaml. :-)

Well, if you're worried about a bit of non-free firmware in Debian,
then I'm afraid you won't like Ubuntu too much.  There are whole
websites dedicated to "fixing" Ubuntu by installing huge amounts of
not merely non-free, but outright copyright-infringing software.

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones, CTO Merjis Ltd.
Merjis - web marketing and technology - http://merjis.com
Internet Marketing and AdWords courses - http://merjis.com/courses - NEW!
Merjis blog - http://blog.merjis.com - NEW!

Re: [Caml-list] OCaml on Debian or Ububtu (reprise)

[Erik de Castro Lopo]

David MENTRE wrote:

> Interesting to know. Have you reported such bugs to the Ubuntu project?

I have reported numerous bugs to the Ubuntu project and my experience
is that nobody even looks at them let alone fixes them. I think Ubuntu
is actually significantly worse at responding to bugs than the Debian
project.

Erik
-- 
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
  Erik de Castro Lopo
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
"The Muslim uproar has a goal: to prohibit criticism of Islam by Christians
and thereby to impose Shariah norms on the West. Should Westerners accept 
this central tenet of Islamic law, others will surely follow."
-- http://www.danielpipes.org/article/3968

Re: [Caml-list] OCaml on Debian or Ububtu (reprise)

[Erik de Castro Lopo]

Richard Jones wrote:

> No.  It's not a bug in Ubuntu, so much as a problem that they seem to
> have exported an incorrect mix of packages, probably during one of
> Debian-ocaml-maint's "upgrade the whole world" exercises between
> 3.09.1 and 3.09.2.  In any case you can fix the issue by upgrading to
> the current testing version (Feisty).

Damn I just upgraded my laptop from Dapper to Edgy [0] to get some updated 
Python libraries. I haven't done much Ocaml since the upgrade but if is
as broken as you say I might well switch back to Debian.

Erik

[0] The upgrade was a royal pain in the neck which broke many programs
    that I use on a regular basis.
-- 
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
  Erik de Castro Lopo
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
"Perl - The only language that looks the same before and after 
RSA encryption." -- Keith Bostic

<off-topic> debian or Ubuntu (reprise)

[Ralf Treinen]

On Mon, Dec 18, 2006 at 10:55:52PM +0100, David MENTRE wrote:

> <Off-topic>I'm myself considering to move from Debian to Ubuntu because
> the Debian project is now accepting non-free software in main, Debian is

If you care about the freeness of software then debian is certainly a
better choice then ubuntu. See, for instance, the "Slippery Slopes"
posting on the blog of Scott James Remnant

http://www.netsplit.com/blog/articles/2006/11

> <Off-topic>I'm myself considering to move from Debian to Ubuntu because
> the Debian project is now accepting non-free software in main, Debian is
> no longer focused on Free Software[1] [...]
> [1]  http://www.us.debian.org/vote/2006/vote_004#outcome : "Further
>      discussion" won! 

The Debian Free Software Guidelines stand unchanged:

http://www.us.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines

What makes you say that Debian now accepts non-free software in main?

-Ralf.

Re: [Caml-list] OCaml on Debian or Ububtu (reprise)

[skaller]

On Tue, 2006-12-19 at 09:49 +1100, Erik de Castro Lopo wrote:
> Richard Jones wrote:
> 
> > No.  It's not a bug in Ubuntu, so much as a problem that they seem to
> > have exported an incorrect mix of packages, probably during one of
> > Debian-ocaml-maint's "upgrade the whole world" exercises between
> > 3.09.1 and 3.09.2.  In any case you can fix the issue by upgrading to
> > the current testing version (Feisty).
> 
> Damn I just upgraded my laptop from Dapper to Edgy [0] to get some updated 
> Python libraries. I haven't done much Ocaml since the upgrade but if is
> as broken as you say I might well switch back to Debian.

Just download the Ocaml tarball and build it yourself.
Or even better -- build directly from the CVS repository.
Ocaml builds 'out of the box': very nice job from Inria there
considering it is double bootstraps!

-- 
John Skaller <skaller at users dot sf dot net>
Felix, successor to C++: http://felix.sf.net

Re: [Caml-list] OCaml on Debian or Ububtu (reprise)

[Richard Jones]

On Tue, Dec 19, 2006 at 03:13:49PM +1100, skaller wrote:
> On Tue, 2006-12-19 at 09:49 +1100, Erik de Castro Lopo wrote:
> > Richard Jones wrote:
> > 
> > > No.  It's not a bug in Ubuntu, so much as a problem that they seem to
> > > have exported an incorrect mix of packages, probably during one of
> > > Debian-ocaml-maint's "upgrade the whole world" exercises between
> > > 3.09.1 and 3.09.2.  In any case you can fix the issue by upgrading to
> > > the current testing version (Feisty).
> > 
> > Damn I just upgraded my laptop from Dapper to Edgy [0] to get some updated 
> > Python libraries. I haven't done much Ocaml since the upgrade but if is
> > as broken as you say I might well switch back to Debian.
> 
> Just download the Ocaml tarball and build it yourself.
> Or even better -- build directly from the CVS repository.
> Ocaml builds 'out of the box': very nice job from Inria there
> considering it is double bootstraps!

Sure it does, but package management is more than just about building
a single base program once.  To install our CMS, we use at least 10
libraries (helpfully maintained by Debian-ocaml-maint), and we want
those libraries to be versioned, maintained and have upgrades and
security patches applied automatically.

Anyhow, this is really getting off-topic.

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones, CTO Merjis Ltd.
Merjis - web marketing and technology - http://merjis.com
Internet Marketing and AdWords courses - http://merjis.com/courses - NEW!
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