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

[Philippe Wang <lists@philippewang.info>]

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