auto configuration systems

[Tom H]

On Wed, Apr 12, 2017 at 12:53 PM, Ralf Mardorf <silver.bullet at zoho.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 12 Apr 2017 12:37:26 -0400, Tom H wrote:
>>
>> This is all illogical. Unless someone wants to use the exact defaults
>> of all upstreams, it's not more difficult to set your own configs when
>> using Ubuntu than when using Arch.
>
> The OP doesn't want the default settings from upstream, but the OP
> wants to have much control with less work. So a real rolling release
> distro following upstream, _instead_ of providing distro specific
> patches, _instead_ of splitting software to different packages from one
> to the next release, _instead_ of auto-starting everything that could
> be auto-started, even for new, unneeded services of new hard
> dependencies _is much_, much easier with less work to customise, than
> Ubuntu.

If you don't use the exact upstream defaults, it'll as much work to
set up Arch and Ubuntu. There's no escaping that.

If you disable "Recommends", Arch and Ubuntu probably pull in more or
less the same number of packages.

It doesn't matter whether you're using a rolling release or not.

It doesn't matter whether there are distro-specific patches.

It doesn't matter whether an upstream package foo is installed as foo
and provides bar and baz on Arch and it's installed as foo and
foo-common and one provides bar and the other baz.

It doesn't matter whether services are auto-started. I've never used
it with systemd (I assume that it still works) but you can set up
"policy-rc.d" (echo "exit 101" > /usr/sbin/policy-rc.d ; chmod +x
/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d) to prevent daemons to be "enabled when
installed". Anyway, whether on Arch or Ubuntu, if a service is
installed and not enabled and another depends on it, it'll be
auto-started (unless you mask it, but the latter's an extra step).

Simply because Arch promotes itself as highly customizable, etc,
doesn't mean that it's true.

Simply because Debian prmotes itself as the Universal OS (or something
along these lines) doesn't mean that it's true (except that it might
be available on more architectures than other distros, but I don't
think that this is how users interpret this expression).

The catch phrases are intended for believers and for people who want
to feel superior, but it's pure propaganda, and, as such, pure BS.