User Feedback :: Is DSL the one?
I've had DSL 2.0 installed to the HD of my Dell Inspiron 3200 laptop for a little over 6 weeks and I think I'm finally able to verbalize my feelings about the distro. Is DSL the final answer in my quest for a small, fast Linux distro? The answer unfortunately is no, but a qualified "no". DSL *will* be the first distro I turn to when I need a capable Linux installation up and running immediately. It just won't be the one that I run for a long time on my personal workstation.
The distro is amazingly small and performs well, especially on older hardware which becomes sluggish with large, full-featured distros that use traditional window managers like Gnome and KDE. All of the applications which come with DSL work quickly and efficiently and in my opinion are some of the best apps I've used. Hats off to using Sylpheed, for example. It's the best email client I've seen in a long time. Beaver is another application that I'll continue to use when I'm looking for a WYSIWYG editor. Where DSL falls flat on its arse though, is in the installation of new applications, particularly applications compiled and installed from source code.
Although 3 mechanisms exist for installing new apps; mydsl, apt-get, and source code compilation/install; none of them work particularly well imho, especially when DSL is run in a HD install. I'll give a brief rundown of my experiences with each below, starting with mydsl.
The mydsl package manager is a good idea in general, but feels unfinished. The need to be logged in as user "dsl" to install new apps makes it particularly frustrating to use in a multiuser environment. Although the tool can be invoked from the command line, allowing you to "su dsl" and install extensions from any user account on the system, this feature is trumped by the need to manually copy desktop icons and program links from the "dsl" account into yours after the installation is complete before being able to use them. It seems that mydsl is intended to those that run DSL from CD or other removable media, but it's a shame that it can't be a bit more flexible. Gripes about its administrative qualities aside though, the applications available via mydsl have all worked well, and are all recent enough versions to be useful additions to my system. Too bad there aren't more applications which have been ported to the mydsl repository, but it's easy to see how that will always be a moving target.
Moving on to apt-get, the traditional Debian package manager, my results with it have been mixed as well. First and foremost, the DSL specification of "oldstable" as the default release version is ludicrous. Using apt-get in that mode *will and does* cause problems rapidly, as apt-get will lower the versions of your libraries. Users of apt-get are well advised to update the release version to "stable", after which it seems to work as one would generally expect. As the makers of DSL say though, DSL is not pure Debian, and you can expect some things installed via apt-get not to work.
Finally we're to the thorn in my side. The straw that will get me to replace my DSL installation sometime this week. I speak of course of the joys inherent to compiling and installing from source code. Never something that is truly pleasant, even after close to 10 years of using Linux, in DSL it is a truly miserable experience. As SaidinUnleashed states so succinctly in his 'Compiling Problems and DSL' post, "DSL, being a minimalist distro is not exactly a friendly environment for compiling programs."
Amen Brother!
In most of the other distros I've used, like say Slackware for example, there are "Development" options available that can be loaded to provide support for compilation of source code. In DSL, although there are some utilities, like gcc and gtk2+ available, my experience has been that they are incomplete and that one rapidly enters dependency hell nightmares. Don't believe me? Just try installing the latest version of Audacity from source and you'll see what I mean. Even with the mydsl extensions loaded that are supposed to meet the requirements, you end up trying to make up shortcomings with either apt-get, or by downloading and trying to install more source code. I believe the final straw for me came when I could not get a perl module with compiled C code, XML::Parser, installed properly due to problems with gcc and make This after even using apt-get to install a new version of perl, and perl-modules, make, and gcc, and then manually building expat. Pffft! No thanks, enough is enough.
To sum up what has become somewhat of a rant. Do I like DSL? You bet, it's the easiest Linux distro I have ever installed, and it works pretty damn well right out of the CD. Linux fortunately or unfortunately is still an OS that requires one to hunt out and find the software that one needs or wants to use. That's the devil-headed beauty of it. Bill Gates isn't deciding what applications we should use, and because of the availability of open source software, just about any conceivable application is available for a Linux user to try. Not being able to dip into that resource while running DSL is a bit of a disappointment.
Use the right tool for the right job.
It has been stated so many times that DSL is not primarily designed to be installed "as your father's operatiing system" to the hard drive.. Read about this in the Blog.
If you choose to install this way, then use the proper tool, which is *not* dsl extensions. You may certainly then compile from sources. Many of the apps in DSL are compiled is just such a way. In fact, to answer your compiliing rant, DSL 2.0 kernel and modules, and other new packages were developed on DSL 1.5 with the gcc1.dsl. To complain about oldstable means that you buy into the software bloat that is occuring everywhere. If a tool work for you then why the constant upgrade bloat cycle.
The dsl extensions are designed for liveCD, frugal, embedded and other compressed read-only cloop environment. Which implies that there is a user dsl. We don't run as root. Using root would change permissions and make the system unuseable.
Running in compressed read-only base environment are the type of installs that interest the developers of DSL.
To post complaints about the *old* way of doing things or buying into the software bloat means that you were correct to deinstall DSL and move on.
*old way* You betcha. Very constructive, thanks. ;) This IS the section of the forum where users are told to provide their feedback about DSL, right? My response to you is as follows:
1 - If you don't want feedback about how the distro performs in an HD installation, don't include the option to install it to HD. Calling an HD install "the Old way" of doing things is like advocating one religion over another. I happen to prefer a HD installation on my laptop, it uses less battery power, among other reasons, which I shouldn't have to give you as justification since the distro gives me the option of running it that way.
2 - Regarding "oldstable" vs "stable". It's fine to say that apps were smaller in the past, and therefore better. In fact it puts a tear in my eye and makes me yearn for the "good old days". Too bad that we all know some things in the "good old days" weren't all that good. This is true with applications as well. vi does a fantastic job, it's been around since the 70's, and I love it. I also like MS Word and all of its features, depending on the circumstance. My complaint about having "oldstable" set as the release has NOTHING to do with the application size and version. My complaint with it is that if you use apt-get to install software with it set this way, you will soon start to have conflicts with your default DSL system. Since apt-get is recommended for use with HD systems, and HD systems tend to be larger than 50MB these days, the application size argument is lame imho.
As far as using the gcc1+ dsl extension, to compile code... rotfl. Want I should send you the t-shirt? It sorta works, some of the time.
Here's a constructive suggestion to you. Make a separate mydsl repository section called "Development". Then split out all of the libs and other development tools currently in "System" and put them in there. Also add back in ALL of the libs and development tools that you've stripped out of the base version and put them in the new section. Basically put all of the tools in a place where they can be optionally installed by someone.
Providing the means for someone to work with DSL in a way that doesn't suit someone else's narrow world view won't affect the existing user base in any way. The only harm that could come out of it is that people will find new ways of using the distro.
I agree with both of you here. As you (lagerratrobe) have, I've also found that DSL is not, and may never be, my distro of choice for day-to-day computing needs, particularly since i am into frequently messing around with new software (or new-to-me software) on a whim...this means needing a great mass of libs and includes on hand. So my primary distro(s) are the father-type full-featured things (suse and slackware, mostly).
However, I greatly appreciate the flexibility offered with DSL....the ability to install on a number of media types in minutes, the tiny size, the mountable extensions. While i very seldom use DSL for any serious work (simply because i already have two fully-stocked linux systems), I think it's the most enjoyable distro to play with from a developer's point of view. The frugal install provides a user with a bulletproof system which can be quickly reverted to its original state with a simple reboot. DSL-specific tasks are 100% script, which means that an interested user can see exactly what is happening and make whatever changes desired to make it more personalized, without needing to obtain separate source code packages and recompile applications. UCI mydsl extensions are probably the coolest way to handle packages that I've ever seen...I like it so much that I'm considering incorporating it or something very similar into my other systems.
EDIT: While i agree that the myDSL system might be slightly more useful if it could be used properly by other users (or even just root), acomplishing this without requiring a messy hack (copying files from /home/dsl and setting proper file ownership) would mean having to rebuild nearly every package and breaking compatability with previous versions of DSL. MyDSL has been evolving constantly, and some minor issues just don't seem to be worth that kind of effort.
I would second that idea of using the right tool for the job. I love DSL for speed and stability, because it allows me to experiment with a lot of Linux software without spending a lot of time to do it, and if it fails to work, a reboot will bring it back to life with no damage. I have other, full installs of large Linux distos too - Mandriva, and Ubuntu. Those have their place, but my old laptop won't even boot either of them past the first install page. DSL will do everything that I need to do when I'm on the road, and do it fast and well without taking much, or any, hard drive space. I'm also not afraid to recommend DSL or install DSL for new users, because it just works without any fuss. People who have never used a M$ product can use DSL without a problem because they aren't confused by the convention that has been established by that crowd.
<edit> I would like to add that I don't think there is yet a single OS that does everything that everybody would like to do equally well. There probably should never be.
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