It is diverse bur equally its overbearing to weed through sub-packages to get the right package you need.

Ports are packages from source. Gentoo, Funtoo, and CRUX all use packages built and installed from source, and only meet dependencies for which you the system administrator has choice over. If I want to build vim for xorg I can, if not, so be it. It is still a package in the end, just more fine tuned.

Plus, how is a blind "./configure && make && make install" bad? Yes, FHS often requires files be in various locations, and that's fine, but prior to final packaging, they can be moved and linked as needed. That's why you can insert various arguments into ./configure.
________________________________
From: KatolaZ<mailto:katolaz@freaknet.org>
Sent: ‎7/‎17/‎2015 1:47 PM
To: James Powell<mailto:james4591@hotmail.com>
Cc: T.J. Duchene<mailto:t.j.duchene@gmail.com>; dng@???<mailto:dng@lists.dyne.org>
Subject: Re: [DNG] dng@???

On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 12:06:59PM -0700, James Powell wrote:
> It's not just that, but why are there so many broken down packages? -bin, -dev, -meta, -src, -lib, -doc, etc. my God do we need this many? Many distributions use just one all inclusive package to avoid problems unless its a temporary dependency build time only. Yes, I'd say it broken, far worse though that one can realize, and far confusing to some people as well.
>
> If you run "./configure && make && make install" you get an all inclusive package. That's in every handbook and textbook I've read too.
>
> This structured, repurposed, and tiered package system is utter nonsense. There's packages that install nothing but a symlink for crying out loud!
>
> What .deb packages need is simplification, not more convulsion to muck things up and complicate things worse for new uses.

But do you have in mind any concrete example of how such an
alternative package systems should work (and, please, don't mention
BSD-like ports, because that is not a package system) or yours is just
an undefined theory?

What you consider "so many broken down packages" is actually what has
allowed Debian to provide the largest and most stable software base a
single distribution has ever put together. Just to make an example, I
don't really see the point of installing the header files of every
single library you use in your system, which is what you would obtain
by a blind ./configure && make && make install. I am sure you don't
want that either. I believe that you perhaps are underestimating a bit
the amount of work needed to have packages that "behave nice to each
other", as you normally do in what we call a "distribution".

You know, *in theory* there should not be any difference between
theory and practice, BUT *in practice* usually theory does not have
that much to do with practice...

HND

KatolaZ

--
[ Enzo Nicosia aka KatolaZ --- GLUG Catania -- Freaknet Medialab ]
[ me [at] katolaz.homeunix.net -- http://katolaz.homeunix.net -- ]
[ GNU/Linux User:#325780/ICQ UIN: #258332181/GPG key ID 0B5F062F ]
[ Fingerprint: 8E59 D6AA 445E FDB4 A153 3D5A 5F20 B3AE 0B5F 062F ]