[H-GEN] Samba on SuSE 8.1

[Greg Black]

On 2003-05-08, Ewan Edwards wrote:
> On Thursday 8 May 2003 12:51 am, Michael Anthon wrote:
> >
> > Why use the source?  Surely Suse has a precompiled package?  As a learning
> > exercise I wouldn't be starting with a self built version since a prebuilt
> > one is more likely to work.
> 
> Agree entirely with this sentiment.  
> The only advantage I see of using the source is immediate access to the latest 
> patches and fixes.

Well, there *are* a number of situations where packages just
don't cut it -- although I very much doubt that this is the case
in this particular situation.

However, for completeness and the benefit of the lurkers, here
are some reasons why you might need to go with the source:

 * The software is something that can only be installed from a
   package for the first ever install and from then on must be
   carefully built by hand and upgraded by hand -- PostgreSQL is
   the offender that always springs to mind here.

 * You are installing one of those huge kitchen sink things like
   apache and the particular set of components you want just
   don't happen to be packaged neatly for you, so you have to
   build it from source to get the result you want.

 * You have made your own patches to the software in order to
   get it do the right thing and so can't install a new package
   if you still want your own improvements to be included.

 * You want a version patched against the latest exploit and the
   package providers have been a bit slow to get a new package
   out for your architecture.

 * The package authors have made some decision about package
   dependencies that you don't agree with and it's only by doing
   it yourself that you can avoid having some other piece of
   bloatware installed as part of the requirements for the
   package.

 * The package authors have made some bizarre decisions about
   how the package should be configured and setup and you hate
   having to go around finding how to disable all that stuff.

I find myself not using certain packages because of all of these
reasons, and I'm certainly not alone in that.

On the other hand, I make it a rule to take as much from the
packages for any system as I possibly can -- it saves a great
deal of time and just plain hard work when you can use them; and
they are, for the most part, quite good at providing the things
you want.

Greg

-- 
Greg Black <gjb at gbch.net> <http://www.gbch.net/gjb.html>
GPG signed mail preferred; further information in headers.
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