Binary (in)compatible (SOLVED)

[Roel]

Some expressions one just takes for true without questioning about the meaning. Then, later on,questions DO rise.

One of these expressions is: “Debian and some distributions based on Debian are not binary compatible”.

Now, these distributions are based on Debian, use the same kernel, a high percentage of their apps are Debian made, now in WHAT point lies the binary incompatibility?

Just curious…

*edit*

Marked as solved, thought there wasn't really anything to solve

[huggybear]

I am not really sure what binary compatibility entails as a term, but here are a few examples:

- Pulling in .deb packages from Ubuntu might give you complaints about missing packages, and then you find out that you already have them, but they are just named differently.
- I have an encyclopaedia (proprietary) which only works properly on SUSE (it even says that in the manual). On Debian, I have to symlink the hell out of a dozen of libraries to get it to work, and even then the sound won´t budge.

[Roel]

Clear enough, now at least I know what possibly can go wrong.

Although, I must say that the only .deb I install is Webmin, the rest of the non-repo apps I install from source.

Thanks!

[huggybear]

When it comes to .debs, there´s always the dry run in apt which doesn´t actually install, but only shows you what would happen (man apt-get). My personal rule of thumb:

1. Debian package from official repos or Debian Multimedia (dry run if on Sid or early Testing)
2. External Debian package if it´s from a decent project´s website or a trusted member of the community. I try to use those as little as possible.
3. Source code -- if it isn´t much of a hassle to compile.
4. Some PPA stuff from Ubuntu works fine, but I never use packages with lots of dependencies or system related libraries. Only very small stuff (e.g. the Ubuntu font).

[Roel]

I think my MO is pretty much the same, except for the PPA's, which I haven't used since I left Ubuntu.

And somehow there's always a good howto whenever I install something from source (like Dropbox and Citrix).