As part of the rpm packaging system, rpm maintains a database of installed packages. That's why the updates can be tracked and that's why uninstalls will work well with rpm. It will also manage upgrades and you can choose whether to retain your older configuration files and settings. That's all part of "packaging" intelligence.
Not so with tar. With tar there is no such tracking, no such database, because tar has nothing to do with "packaging" it's only an archiving program. tar will give you files and then you choose what to do with them. Many tarballs for software include scripts to do an installation but there is no "package management". Often I'll do an rpm UNinstall before I install a later version. That keeps things clean. However, be careful if you want to maintain the old configuration settings. Those will get blown away unless your careful. Kim write: " It would be nice to have something to keep track of what you have on your system without spending 20-30 minutes to find the simple information and who-knows-how-long for the more difficult ones." Wayne says: Might be nice, but let's not turn Linux into windows. There are utilities in Linux that act like primitives that can acomplish those kinds of things. 'find' and 'grep' and 'diff' come to mind. Storing a find list (and adding options to give file attributes to the list) can go a long way toward tracking what was on your system at a given time. However, it's still not a packaging database like what rpm has. I wrote a script to take a snapshot of my configuration filesystem which can be easily compared against snapshots at different times. This could easily be done with /usr /lib and /usr/lib to track what has been installed and when. That could be a good presentation for some meeting. Wayne > Another thing I would like to understand is the differences between a .tgz > file (a gzipped tarball) and an RPM, and can one be made into the other > (and if so, how?)? > > This could be a part of a discussion as to how and when to upgrade your > software, perhaps. Often you get one or the other and RH and Mandrake have > ways of tracking the RPM updates, but not the .tgz ones. It would be nice > to have something to keep track of what you have on your system without > spending 20-30 minutes to find the simple information and > who-knows-how-long for the more difficult ones. > > (Just some random thoughts) > > TIA > Kim
