Re: apt-like package management on rpm based systems Was: [vox] boy, was
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Re: apt-like package management on rpm based systems Was: [vox] boy, was that fast!
Quoting Peter Jay Salzman (p@dirac.org):
> debian's strict adherence to packaging policy does have magic, but
> saying that apt-get has none of its own might be overstating the case a
> bit.
>
> simply the fact that rpm based distros are starting to come up with
> utilities that emulate the functionality of apt-get is proof enough that
> people think apt-get has alot of stars placed next to its name.
If you'll notice the context, I was attempting to address the (widely
held) misconception that simply adding Conectiva's apt-get port (or
something similar) to an existing RPM-like distribution gives it
Debian's maintainability. And to point out that nothing prevents
an approxmiation of Debian-like functionality on RPM. Conectiva has
proved that.
>> Linux-Mandrake, Red Hat, SuSE, TurboLinux, and a whole bunch of others
>> _cannot_ be as incrementally maintainable as Debian (and Libranet) is.
>> It's not the fact that they use RPM: RPM is a perfectly fine package
>> format. It's pretty much all in the policy.
>
> again, here, i'm not sure i agree. one of the most powerful components
> of the debian packaging system is the ability to run pre-install and
> post-install scripts.
You are mistaken: RPM supports both pre-install and post-install
scripts.
> as it stands, rpm is incapable of doing this.
Tell Joey Hess that: http://www.kitenet.net/~joey/pkg-comp/
One of the reasons Joey maintains that page is that he gets really tired
of people missing the point about package formats, and _particularly_
for attributing to the RPM format problems it doesn't have.
In case you don't know Joey, he's a longtime maintainer of RPMs who's
now one of the main Debian developers (maintainer of many official
packages), who also developed and maintains the "alien"
package-conversion utility.
Ironically, one of RPM's features that's proved most problematic for
the Conectiva people and others is a capability it has that .deb lacks
completely: file dependencies. Automatically satisfying these as part
of managing the dependency tree can drive the RAM and processor
requirements for apt-get and similar systems sky-high.
> i read an article in LJ a year or two ago which claimed that people
> were looking into a backward compatible "rpm2" which had script
> capability. i'm not sure whatever happened to that.
I'm not sure you read, but you appear to have not gotten that right.
Have a look: http://www.rpm.org/RPM-HOWTO/build.html#SCRIPTS
("6.7. Optional pre and post Install/Uninstall Scripts").
--
Cheers, The difference between common sense and paranoia is that common sense
Rick Moen is thinking everyone is out to get you. That's normal; they are.
rick@linuxmafia.com Paranoia is thinking they're conspiring. -- J. Kegler
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