Questions in this catagory:
- What's special/unique about Vesta?
- Does Vesta support distributed operation?
Yes. Vesta repositories are peers. You can replicate versions into your repository and make local branches based on them. You can even make and work in branches when disconnected from the network (e.g. on a laptop).
Some people have been confused about this and called Vesta "centralized" or "non-distributed". This might be because of the terms "repository server" and "repository client". You must run a repository server to use Vesta, but you can have as few as one client (e.g. both running on a laptop).
There might also be some confusion caused by the concept of the master flag and the way that vcheckout can check out objects mastered at a remote repository. This really only has to do with naming of versions, and doesn't prevent distributed operation. See the -F option to vcheckout.- How does Vesta compare to other SCM's?
The researchers who developed Vesta wrote a comparison with RCS, CVS, and Make.
There's also an independent assessment of quite a few modern SCM systems, including Vesta. Unfortunately, this document leaves out any mention of building, which we feel is a key part of configuration management.- What operating systems is Vesta available for?
Currently Vesta is available known to run on:
- Linux on IA-32 compatible processors
- Linux on Alpha
- Linux on PowerPC
- Linux on Sparc
- HP Tru64 UNIX (aka Digital UNIX) on Alpha
Vesta should be portable to any UNIX-like system with an NFS client implementation and the chroot system call. Ports to Solaris, FreeBSD, and MacOS X are being planned. Windows users see How do I use Vesta under Windows?