Binary compatibility on Linux

[John Colvin]

On Monday, 12 November 2012 at 07:22:04 UTC, Jacob Carlborg wrote:

> As I understand it Debian is a more stable distribution and 
> Ubuntu is a faster moving target. The question is how much 
> faster. Would Ubuntu LTS be more ahead of compared to the 
> latest stable Debian.

Debian testing is a rolling distribution, so it is always in an 
unstable state. Debian stable is, as it says, stable. To answer 
your question, just look at what debain version the particular 
ubuntu LTS version is based on.

To be honest, unless you're going to package all your 
dependancies along with the download, then you have to go down 
one of two routes: source distribution with a nice simple build 
procedure or making packages for the main distributions. I would 
recommend doing both.

Look at it this way: the sort of people who aren't using a debian 
or fedora based distro aren't going to be phased by building from 
source (as a matter of fact they might prefer it).
If you provide packages for debian and fedora and a source 
distribution as a fallback then you've covered the vast majority 
of your bases, allowing less advanced users to use package 
managers and letting the wild-west fringe distro people do 
whatever they want.