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On Wednesday 16 October 2002 14:27, you wrote:
> Sorry for being rude, but ...
> This is the storry
>
> Several weeks ago, I updated RH7.3 to 8.0 version using "update all"
> option. Even though I didn't asked the installation program to remove any
> programs from my disk, I was astounded to discover that KPackage and GnoRpm
> have gone, and now the only way to have a GUI to package management is some
> impotent tool that RH have included, which gives me no choices what so
> ever.
I wouldn't judge RH as harshly as you but there is one very important
technical comment that I would like to make:
NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER trust upgrades!!!!
And another good hint:
NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER custom select which packages you install UNLESS
you're starting off from one of the predefined collections.
Why ?!?
EVER NEVER NEVER NEVER trust upgrades!!!! - The upgrade process heavily
depends on the fact that dependencies listed in RPMS are: 1. accurare. 2
complete. They are neither. Why ?!? simply because they are mostly deduced
from binary .so dependencies and dependencies like "this tool runs that tool"
don't come into play unless someone with intimate knowledge of the software
made the RPM which is not the case since usually RH are the ones doing the
packaging and not the original author of the application (yes yes yes - it's
better if the original auther did the packaging just like any other thing
like documentation, bug tracking and security. Things are always better when
they are done at the source of the application than by some outsider and they
also are more consistant that way). Upgrading a major distribution version is
such a leap of faith that you're better off writing the damn thing
yourself...:)
Regarding selection of individual packages. Lets say that a distribution has
700 packages. This means that you can make 2^700 different selection of what
to install. Because of the "span the graph" algorithm the number of choices
is actually a lot smaller but it's still MUCH LARGER THAN THE NUMBER OF
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE. What does this mean ? That RH did
NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, did QA on every conceivable choice of packages.
They did, however, do QA on the 10-15 preselected configuration that they did
offer. And they found the bugs in them (that came from having
incomplete/inaccurate RPM dependencies). If you select whatever you want you
may hit a dependency bug. It may be easy to solve (a UI program may complain
that it cannot find another program and you'll just install the RPM). But if
you are unlucky you'll find yourself with the firewall not running an
essential component WITHOUT YOU KNOWING ABOUT IT!!!. I hope I made myself
clear...:)
Cheers,
Mark
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