On Thu, 13 Apr 2000, David Brownlee wrote:
>
> In what way does redhat lose with package integration? The main
> ways I could see would be the frightening lossage that ensues when
> you have two packages which each depend on a different version
> of a common package (not likely to be a problem with analog), and
> mismatched shared libraries between the package and the base
> system (again, not something I'd expect with analog).
>
Well, I haven't used RedHat. But as I understand it
(1) RedHat relies on an unknown user to get the dependencies right. Debian
only lets official developers do it.
(2) Because all packages are part of the distribution, they are all covered
in the bug tracking database. And if a package has a serious enough bug and
is not fixed, it can eventually get forceably taken over, or pulled. RedHat
leaves it lying around until someone provides a replacement.
(3) Packages occasionally conflict in unexpected ways. Because everything is
in the distribution in Debian, this can be reported and fixed.
(4) Debian has more available dependencies: Apart from Depends and
Conflicts, it has Recommends, Suggests, Replaces, Provides and Pre-Depends.
This seems to make for much smoother installation.
Maybe one example is worth any number of arguments. Compare these two
listings and tell me which system works:
RedHat:
libc5/SRPMS/analog-1.92b-pent-1.src.rpm
libc5/SRPMS/analog-2.11-1.src.rpm
libc5/SRPMS/analog-2.11-2.src.rpm
libc5/SRPMS/analog-form-4.0-1.src.rpm
libc5/i386/analog-2.11-2.i386.rpm
libc5/i386/analog-form-4.0-1.i386.rpm
libc5/sparc/analog-2.11-2.sparc.rpm
libc5/sparc/analog-form-2.11-2.sparc.rpm
libc6/SRPMS/analog-4.03-1.src.rpm
libc6/i386/analog-4.03-1.i386.rpm
libc6/i386/analog-form-3.0-1.i386.rpm
Debian:
binary-alpha/web/analog_4.01-1.deb
binary-arm/web/analog_4.01-1.deb
binary-i386/web/analog_4.01-1.deb
binary-m68k/web/analog_4.01-1.deb
binary-powerpc/web/analog_4.01-1.deb
binary-sparc/web/analog_4.01-1.deb
source/web/analog_4.01-1.diff.gz
source/web/analog_4.01-1.dsc
source/web/analog_4.01.orig.tar.gz
--
Stephen Turner http://www.statslab.cam.ac.uk/~sret1/
Statistical Laboratory, 16 Mill Lane, Cambridge CB2 1SB, England
"8th March 2000. National No Smoking Day. Ash Wednesday." (On a calendar)
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