On a slightly different take... RPM is used with up2date on redhat for keeping track of what packages you have and checking with the mother ship for updates. There is a short registration, and they only allow you to register one pc to download for free, but for tracking and updating packages, This is hard to beat! The basic purpose of up2date is to manage updates for users that are not deep into systems administration. The beauty there is that a greater audience can be served. It seems like the linux answer to 'windows update'. However, it does not track custom compiled or non-rpm type installs.
For the command line inclined, if you blindly download all the RPMs you think you need and want to apply updates to only the already installed packages you can type : rpm -Fhv *.rpm and it will look at the RPMs listed, test to see if any are upgrades to existing stuff AND any dependancies are ok, then installs quietly by itself. If the dependancies fail, it will usually tell you what package or library is missing and not install. As always, if you know what you want and dont care about the dependancies, a --force added to the command will install everything and you are off and running. The other install methods are OK, I haven't gotten into debian or the others. This is an example of really taking technology and making it ready for the masses. FYI -----Original Message----- From: PinkFreud [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, January 14, 2002 8:10 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: package magic On Mon, Jan 14, 2002 at 05:57:24PM -0500, Wayne babbled thus: > Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 17:57:24 -0500 > From: Wayne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.75 [en] (WinNT; U) > To: Kim Goldenberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: package magic > > 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". Not with tar per se. But again, Slackware's package management system DOES use .tgz's, and it does keep a record of installed files - in fact, the packages records are simply text files in /var/log/packages, which, for simplicity's sake, are very easy to manipulate. KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid. :) > > 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. What about the 20 packages which rely on the package you're uninstalling? And the 40 more which rely on those? > > 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." 'grep' > > 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. *cough* > > 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. > *snip* > Wayne -- Mike Edwards Brainbench certified Master Linux Administrator http://www.brainbench.com/transcript.jsp?pid=158188 ----------------------------------- Unsolicited advertisments to this address are not welcome.
