Debian gripes

[Damien Elmes]

James Macnicol <jamesm at ee.adfa.edu.au> writes:

> 	Okay, so the Debian package management stuff is very nice
> however I have two questions/gripes at the moment:
>
> 1.  Where are the info files for gcc hiding?  I want to know how to
> use "gcov" (which comes with gcc), the manual page tells me to look in
> the info file but that isn't installed.  I can't see any package they
> would be likely to be in, besides why install man pages and info files
> separately?  Any ideas?

gcc272-doc or whatever compiler version you're using. They aren't installed
with the base package because they waste space if you don't need them. I bet
you don't read the full manual for the majority of the software you have. The
standard man pages etc still tend to come bundled with the main package.

> 2.  I have to say I'm annoyed that the latest XFree86 and KDE 3.x
> aren't in the mainline Debian archives yet (even in "unstable").  I'm
> fairly keen to try the new KDE which I have seen (briefly) on SuSE
> boxen but I haven't got the time to mess around with using unofficial
> debs from strange places.  Does anyone know when these things are
> likely to be added?

Packaging these things and making sure they conform to debian policy is a
mammoth task. XFree86 has to be made to run across all of debian's supported
architectures, including machines you've probably never heard of. It's a lot
of work, so be patient with the people who do it in their spare time.

Having said that, Branden has had "experimental" packages of xf4.2 up for a
while now that have been working fine for me. You can find them on his debian
page.

Regards,

-- 
Damien Elmes