-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Monday 10 February 2003 05:12, Kevin Anderson wrote: > > re: downloading rpms because they've fallen behind every other modern > > distribution when it comes to package delivery (YAST, urpm*, apt-get...) > > Isn't -U to upgrade rather than install?
- -U installs if it isn't already installed and upgrades if it is. using -i means the user needs to know this, -U lets rpm do the work for you. and rpm gets it wrong with a much lower frequency than the average user does, so use - -U ;-) - -F (freshen) only upgrades if it is previously installed, though... > Isn't delivery easy if you pay for it, via up2date, or whatever? easier, yes... but up2date doesn't stand up very well when compared to systems like urpm* or apt-get which are: a) free to use, even in their default configuration b) easily configured to check network hosts / local media of your choice (emphasis on "easily") c) used not just for upgrading but also for removing/querying and other package management goodness... > > please don't confuse package file formats with package delivery systems. > the > > two work together to solve completeley different aspects of the software > > maintenance challenge. > > But from a user's perspective these end up being the same thing. For that's like saying that from the user's perspective PHP and Apache are the same thing. you'd be right that most web surfers don't pause to consider that there are seperate engines for handling the HTTP transfers and for assembling the data that is transfered. however, if there is a bug in the PHP language, altering your Apache sources won't help much... same with package management. whether it's RPM, dpkg or some other package system being used by the delivery system, if it is onerous to manage your software it's likely the delivery system that needs to be altered. good news is that you can easily add on a delivery system to an existing distro, whereas it is difficult to impossible to change packaging systems. for redhat, you can install apt-get, autorpm or urpm* (among others, i'm sure =) without ditching RPM and you will get all the benefits they bring. > getting software onto one system you do X. To get it on another you do Y. > This person was asking about differences between distros, and what I said > is that if you take the source, and configure, make, and install it, it > works the same for them all. i was responding to the bit where you compared RPM to apt-get, which doesn't make much sense since apt-get supports RPM, not to your general thesis =) it isn't fair to RPM based distros when people say "RPM sucks" when what they really mean is "boy, not having a package delivery system sucks", especially since virtually all the major RPM distros do have such systems now. except Red Hat. my #1 wish for Red Hat in v9 is the adoption of a mildly intelligent package delivery system. i got my #1 wish for SuSe in version 8, so who know, maybe i'll get lucky again ;-) - -- Aaron J. Seigo GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43 KDE: The 'K' is for 'kick ass' http://www.kde.org http://promo.kde.org/3.1/feature_guide.php If this helped you, please take the time to rate the value of this post: http://svcs.affero.net/rm.php?r=aseigo&p=KDE -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE+SEmR1rcusafx20MRAiiVAJ9aHk2p3GPAIKNuqRNPqp+6NPk5RQCcCWwj 4WdkrbNXsX3/FCPkKYL1wfo= =NtGf -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
