In a message dated: Wed, 07 Nov 2001 22:03:00 EST
Benjamin Scott said:
> So, the problem is not with RPM, per se, or even with Red Hat. The
>problem is that the paradigms of the two approaches are fundamentally
>different.
While I agree with this completely, it seems there should be a way to
take the dependancy findings of rpm, invode rpmfind to locate them
and then use rpm to retrieve and install them all automatically
without manual intervention.
However, and this goes back to your statement about them being fundamentally
different approaches, Debian's approach also sets up some kind of
responsibility hierarchy for it's packages. Each package has a
maintainer. Each maintainer must be approved by the Debian community.
Therefore, there's some semblance of responsibility for any given
package.
With RH, this not necessarilly the case. The only entity
you could really consider responsible for anything would be RH
themselves. If they provide a package, you (for the most part) have
little to worry about. Anything they don't provide, you install at
your own risk. It may or may not work, it may or may not be packaged
properly, etc. RH enforces nothing as far as 3rd party contibuted
packages.
With Debian, technically everything is a 3rd party contribution, but
in order to contribute, you must be authorized by the community to do
so.
RH really wants to control what goes into a distribution, much in the
way other proprietary sw vendors have complete control over what goes
in their offerings. Debian has no such desire, since it truly is a
distribution for the people by the people. RH is a distribution for
the profit by company. Therefore, they have no real incentive to
make it easier for you to install packages which are not located in
their distribution/on the CD.
So, you're right, it really comes down to a fundamentally different
approach :)
--
Seeya,
Paul
----
God Bless America!
...we don't need to be perfect to be the best around,
and we never stop trying to be better.
Tom Clancy, The Bear and The Dragon
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