Dhawal Doshy wrote:
Dhawal Doshy wrote:
Manoj Srivastava wrote:
Hi,
Here follows commentary on the major points of difference oj
just the rpm and deb format (please read the URL for details
regarding other package formats).
Another plus of an RPM is the '-V' option to verify the integrity of
an installed RPM (i am not sure if that exists in deb)
Well the TFA says it does.. .deb does provide checksums for all the
files in the package.
Also forgot to add, one major drawback of RPM is the db3/4 based backend
in /var/lib/rpm which is highly fragile and needs some serious re-design..
To add some more.. a major feature for RPM (the SuSE version) is
'delta-rpm', which lets you download only incremental changes for an
already installed RPM. The incremental changes are then used to recreate
a newer RPM. Does something like this exist for .debs?
In any case, with the upcoming collaboration of redhat, novell, mandriva
etc.. i'd prefer rpm over any other packaging format for purely comfort
reasons (which also includes laziness). And as far as managing packages
is concerned there are various options available 'rpm itself', up2date,
yum, apt, smart etc.. currently i prefer yum but that could change if
required. Apart from dpkg, apt (and maybe synaptic) i am not aware of
.deb package management tools.. apt is already good and some features
from yum like 'use closest mirror' etc if ported to apt would make it
really cool.
Finally i love the way redhat and clones package their systems using
anaconda, kickstart etc which makes installation a breeze for newbies
and experts alike. I'd also like show-off my new-found love for cobbler
(cobbler.et.redhat.com) but that'd be OT.
To conclude, packaging doesn't matter for most users (especially the
desktop users). It mostly matters to Administrator who either run large
sites and require tonnes of automation OR need a lot of custom software
packaged in their own manner. I'd mostly continue to be a rhel user .rpm
or not.
- dhawal
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