Re: xml2rfc 1.34 on Ubuntu

[Arnt Gulbrandsen <arnt at gulbrandsen.priv.no>]

On 02/04/2010 08:18 PM, Melinda Shore wrote:
> On Feb 4, 2010, at 10:10 AM, Marc Petit-Huguenin wrote:
> > 2544 different packages installed in my main computer.
>
> !!!

It happens. So you want xterm. That's one package, but it depends on a 
few for the shared libraries and a whole lot for fonts. Xterm can 
display dozens of alphabets, and formerly odd glyps like ☑ → … ≠ are 
actually used these days, even in plain English text, so installing a 
wide selection of fonts by default makes sense. So you want an audio 
player. It can play a dozen audio formats, most of which involve a 
separate package called libfoo or blahplayer. It adds up.

> Anyway, I don't need a new version until I need a new version,
> and that's when I know I need a new version and I download it.
> I don't download it if I don't need a new version. What I'm
> reading here is that people are installing and maintaining
> stuff they don't need, which I suppose explains the 2544
> packages. I'd certainly never deny people the ability to
> easily maintain unused and unnecessary software and we're
> headed *way* off-topic, but I was just struck by how odd it
> seemed that somebody who needed the new release of xml2rfc
> would be frustrated by it not being in the absolutely,
> completely, 100% farkakte ports system.

I think you might change your opinion after using a package manager 
that's approximately 0% verkackt for a while. IMO ubuntu's is the best 
there is at the moment.

(Nice word btw, first time I've seen that in English.)

Arnt