Right, well there are a lot of ways to categorize the packages in
debian. But I'm guessing Karen meant she wanted a list of packages by
categories like word processing, mail clients, etc. You can get lists
of packages by very broad categories like mail, desktop, etc. But if
there is a way to get a list of all the word processors, I don't know
what it is.
Like I said in another message, it's not a realistic request. No
operating system has a list of all the possible applications by
category. Does DOS come with such a list? I know Microsoft DOS doesn't.
Maybe 4DOS or FreeDOS does, I can't say for sure. But I doubt it.
Actually, you're probably better off in linux than any other operating
system because there is the apt-cache search command. FreeDOS had a
similar package installation system last time I tried it which was 4 or
5 years ago. But it was based off the apt system from linux and it
certainly wasn't any better.
On 3/6/2013 2:35 AM, Tony Baechler wrote:
What Debian list are you talking about? You can just type "aptitude"
from a command prompt and get a nice list of packages by category with
full descriptions. I'm surprised no one mentioned this as it was one of
the first things I learned. When I got started, Aptitude wasn't really
in use, so I used "dselect" instead which does much the same thing. You
can also visit http://packages.debian.org/ and browse by category. I'm
not sure what you mean by upgrading from an unknown site. There is a
large list of Debian mirrors which you can browse with any web browser
or ftp client. Look at ftp://mirrors.kernel.org/debian/ for one
example. All of the packages are cryptographically signed to prevent
tampering and they're verified to be complete before they're installed,
something you almost never find in Windows and DOS.
I meant it when I said doing the install isn't hard. You can pretty
much just press Enter at the prompts and it does the right thing unless
it can't find your hardware. The only exception is if you want to do
your own fancy hard drive partitioning, but it sounds like you'll be
using a dedicated machine so you can pretty much accept the defaults.
What I meant by being easily able to fix things is that Squeeze is very
stable, so it isn't as though your system will become unbootable unless
you do something really obvious. The package manager won't let you do
anything really bad without warning you. The worst you would have to do
is reinstall a package.
Yes, Shellworld uses FreeBSD, but for practical purposes, it's the same
as far as Lynx and console programs. Linux is a form of Unix and most
Unix programs are portable enough to run on almost any form of Unix,
whether it's a BSD variant or Linux. You won't find that kind of
portability in DOS. That's why the DOS ports of Unix programs require
djgpp and dos4gw or some other extender. The idea of djgpp is to be
able to compile portable programs in a DOS environment.
Actually, I spent weeks fighting with packet drivers and dial-up
networking in DOS because I wanted to run Lynx on my own system. I
never got it working and couldn't find a way to load my packet driver,
screen reader, TCP/IP stack, dialer and web browser without it being so
painfully slow that it wasn't worth it, besides not finding a packet
driver for my network card in the first place, not to mention the memory
issues. I used a dial-up shell account for years because it was so much
faster and easier, then switched to Windows 98.
On 3/5/2013 9:39 AM, Karen Lewellen wrote:
smiling,
I am in the dictionary under in most cases.
I detailed what happened on the install attempt. I agree fixing is not
hard
if one knows what one is doing...witch's been my point.
As for the nicely packaged aspect of Linux, I am not sure everyone
agrees on
that.
In fact you are expected to install from unknown sites if you are
going to
upgrade and the like.
Do not mistake me, as I said I applaud all the versatility. What I do not
get is the difficulty in reaching that versatility.
I asked on the debian list for example to see a list of all the
packages by
category...no one Could provide this.
Indeed the choice of wordpefect is a choice, you might not install
every Dos
program out there...but you can find understandable information and
choose
on your own what might be worth exploring.
because a few have hand picked for you what you really need, if you
are new
you might never find what might be useful.
Ease in understanding is my point here.
Individual choice should be easy to engage in, no matter if others do not
think they need the program.
I mean how many people use lillypond here? Or movgrabe for that matter?
I do not expect anyone else to have to use it just because I want to.
Karen
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