Minimizing packages [LWN.net]

Minimizing packages

Posted Jun 23, 2007 12:26 UTC (Sat) by evgeny (subscriber, #774)
In reply to: Minimizing packages by jmorris42
Parent article: Counting vulnerabilities

Solution: Gentoo (or like, source-based distros).

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Minimizing packages

Posted Jun 27, 2007 20:43 UTC (Wed) by hazelsct (subscriber, #3659) [Link]

Uh, how does that provide any advantage at all? You can remove .rpms or .debs to minimize vulnerabilities as easily as source-based packages (arguably more easily).

Minimizing packages

Posted Jun 27, 2007 21:35 UTC (Wed) by ksmathers (subscriber, #2353) [Link]

Package dependencies arise from the configuration options selected on the machine where the developer built the system. Source based distributions do not have arbitrary dependencies. If you build an app without another library present, and if it can configure itself for the lack of library, then it does.

That can't happen effectively in a system of compiled packages, but it is only important if you are a minimalist, or if you tend to use packages from different sources (which might therefor have conflicting binary dependencies.)

Minimizing packages

Posted Jun 28, 2007 5:51 UTC (Thu) by evgeny (subscriber, #774) [Link]

> but it is only important if you are a minimalist,

I remember from Debian-3.0 days, when I wanted to install the php-odbc module on a server (no X stuff at all), it attempted to install Gtk+, Corba, etc, plus some of Gnome, only because the ODBC GUI setup utility was linked against all those libs. Call me minimalist...