Re: [school-discuss] Re: LyX

[Randy Edwards <redwards@golgotha.net>]

   I don't mean to be too snobbish or to start a distro war, but I have to 
comment on this thread.  I'm pretty amazed at all the headaches you're going 
through just to install LyX (I mean, it's a popular and near-standard 
package, right?!).  If we were to expect a normal teacher to do this, Linux 
wouldn't be used in many places.

   Wouldn't it be worth it to install apt-get (or is it called apt-rpm?) 
for Red Hat?  It's available, and it's simpler to install than the troubles 
you're going through now.

   I'll be blunt; I'm partial to Debian and Debian-based distros for three 
reasons: 1) Debian maintains that militant free software ethos that I find 
appealing; 2) Debian has a simply massive amount of software packages for 
it; and 3) its package tools -- apt-get and dpkg -- are slick and painless 
to use.

   Sure, some people complain about Debian's install (the next version will 
fix that), but some Debian-based distros (e.g. LibraNet, Morphix, etc.) are 
just as easy to install as Red Hat.

   This is what I'd do to install LyX the hard way (from the command line) 
on Debian:

root@mammon.golgotha.net
[~] # apt-get install lyx
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  libaiksaurus-data libaiksaurus0c102 libforms1 libtiff-tools lyx-xforms
Suggested packages:
  chktex nowebm
Recommended packages:
  lyx-qt sgmltools-lite linuxdoc-tools tex4ht hevea tth gnuhtml2latex wv
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libaiksaurus-data libaiksaurus0c102 libforms1 libtiff-tools lyx lyx-xforms
0 upgraded, 6 newly installed, 0 to remove and 28 not upgraded.
Need to get 2259kB of archives.
After unpacking 5612kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]

   and of course I'd have to smack ENTER.

   Again, I apologize if this sounds nasty.  Perhaps if someone has never 
used Debian nor its 10000+ software packages and *.deb packaging system, 
it'll generate some interest.

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