> So, yes, technically you can run a "vanilla Linux" kernel, but not a "vanilla Linux" system, because there is no such thing.
This is kind of quibbling over a comparison between apples and oranges - or rather, more like comparing apple seeds to an entire orange. Whatever a "vanilla" kernel is, it doesn't make sense to compare it directly to a "vanilla" operating system.
> I think you are misinformed. Both rpm/deb ARE binaries. You (and poster) might have meant "executables", which I didn't really pay attention to because it's a strawman.
You won't run into any problems if you have EITHER:
1. A properly compiled static binary
2. The compileable source code
Because of Debian's policies regarding open-source software, in practice #2 will be satisfied for any .deb package you care about.
It doesn't make sense to complain about improperly built packages or build files, because I can easily create a build process that will fail on some BSD systems and not others too - there are many ways you can either accidentally or intentionally hardcode system-specific attributes into a script; the filesystem layout is only one small portion of compatibility.
> It's been a while, but a few years ago, you might get a script that hashbangs "/usr/bin/perl" where your system only supports "/bin/perl". It's easy to fix, either in the script or by making perl available in the other place
There are more elegant ways of fixing this too. In practice, though, it's not a problem. Not only are there tools that will automate this process, but very few scripts are written this badly nowadays anyway. I run a distribution that doesn't use one of the common package formats, and I can't remember a single time in the last two years I had a problem binary portability because of distribution-specific issues.
This is kind of quibbling over a comparison between apples and oranges - or rather, more like comparing apple seeds to an entire orange. Whatever a "vanilla" kernel is, it doesn't make sense to compare it directly to a "vanilla" operating system.
> I think you are misinformed. Both rpm/deb ARE binaries. You (and poster) might have meant "executables", which I didn't really pay attention to because it's a strawman.
You won't run into any problems if you have EITHER:
1. A properly compiled static binary 2. The compileable source code
Because of Debian's policies regarding open-source software, in practice #2 will be satisfied for any .deb package you care about.
It doesn't make sense to complain about improperly built packages or build files, because I can easily create a build process that will fail on some BSD systems and not others too - there are many ways you can either accidentally or intentionally hardcode system-specific attributes into a script; the filesystem layout is only one small portion of compatibility.
> It's been a while, but a few years ago, you might get a script that hashbangs "/usr/bin/perl" where your system only supports "/bin/perl". It's easy to fix, either in the script or by making perl available in the other place
There are more elegant ways of fixing this too. In practice, though, it's not a problem. Not only are there tools that will automate this process, but very few scripts are written this badly nowadays anyway. I run a distribution that doesn't use one of the common package formats, and I can't remember a single time in the last two years I had a problem binary portability because of distribution-specific issues.