Benjamin Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> dpkg lacks quite a bit of the power of RPM when it comes to
>querying installed packages. There is no way to select packages
>based on a file owned, for example.
vanzandt:/tmp$ dpkg --search /bin/fgrep
grep: /bin/fgrep
...so the file /bin/fgrep comes from the grep package.
> There is no way to verify the integrity of installed packages at
>all, as near as I could tell.
debsums can check md5sums:
vanzandt:/tmp$ debsums bing
usr/sbin/bing OK
usr/share/doc/bing/README.Debian OK
usr/share/doc/bing/copyright OK
usr/share/doc/bing/changelog.gz OK
usr/share/doc/bing/README.gz OK
usr/share/doc/bing/changelog.Debian.gz OK
usr/share/man/man8/bing.8.gz OK
> dpkg/dselect/apt seemed to have serious issues with package
>installation ordering. Any time I installed more then 10 or 20
>packages at a time, it almost always spewed errors at the end, and
>instructed me to run the "Install" portion again. Repeated
>invocations of "Install" or "Configure" eventually got everything
>installed, but that rather misses the point of automated package
>management, don't you think?
Sounds like you were not using apt-get, which does a better job of
ordering than dpkg alone. However, there are also loops in the
dependency graph, which make a fully automated solution difficult.
> apt seemed to be brain damaged when it came to source selection.
>Even if the latest version of a package was already available on the
>CD-ROM, it still kept insisting on getting it from the Debian
>servers. Perhaps there is some sort of poorly documented "priority"
>mechanism, but I didn't find one in the manual pages anywhere.
This requires proper configuration of /etc/apt/sources.list. "man
sources.list".
>It did make it a serious pain in the arse to compile pine from
>source, though, since it didn't warn me that I was missing a
>development package, and I had to hunt through reams of output to
>find the important error message.
A means for tracking build-time dependencies has been chosen
(Build-Depends lines in the control file), but not all packages have
them yet.
>Debian really wants you to configure each package as it gets
>installed.
Yes. I perceive the Debian priorities as: flexibility first, long-term
ease of administration second, and ease of installation a distant
third. In order to provide the flexibility, Debian forces the
installer to make choices. It would be nice to have an option "remind
me to fix this later".
- Jim Van Zandt
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