On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 7:09 AM, Chris Thomas <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm not too familiar with apt-get and deb packages. In your opinion, why is > it superior to yum and rpm packages? > > Chris
Well Yum was copied from apt-get. Not directly. Perhaps inspired by would be more fitting. They do not share a code base that I am aware of. Personally I feel that Yums dependency resolution abilities are not as good as apt-get. Which has more to do with the package and repository maintainers then actually Yum or rpm. However the real selling point for me is not really something that apt does but something that .deb/dpkg allows for that Yum and .rpm do not. At least the last time I spent some decent time with a RH based distro. The .rpm format has a weaknesses (IMHO) regarding pre/post/upgrade/remove/install scripts. They basically suck when compared to .deb. Being able to apt-get a package and configure it during the install process rather then having to edit a file or files afterward is a huge benefit to me. Maybe not to you. As well when you remove a package or upgrade it cleans up nicely after itself. Saves a massive amount of time for an admin. I complain about Ubuntu and Debian .deb packages not putting files in the same place. However generally speaking they work for one another. So if a package is not available in one but is in the other I can probably get it to work with minimal effort. A few symbolic links generally or I just move the files. Another big problem I had in the past with .rpm was trying to find them (Yum does resolve that now for the most part) and also determining if they were compatible as far as distro and version and dependencies. With the exception of RHEL/CentOS I have not had much luck with getting packages that work in one version of Fedora to work in another. Keep in mind I just took my last RH based (fedora core 2) VPS off line moving everything to my dedicated Debian server. Hardly ever upgrading it due to the hassles. Debian dist-upgrade ability damn near flawless in its execution in my experience. The very first time someone showed me apt-get and that it not only resolved dependencies but it prompted for config settings as the package was installed blew my mind. I was using RH 6.x 7.x at the time. So it was like 98/99 ish. It was one of those moments like in the movies when you hear the angels singing. I believe it was pretty complex at the time. Maybe 8 or 9 packages which had hundreds of dependencies. I do remember it included x-window-system and it was Debian Potato when it was still in testing status. I will bash on rpm at the drop of a hat. Any hat. Beanies too.However it does have a feature .deb does not. Although I've never made use of it. You can roll back packages to previous versions and or times, if installed with the "--repackage" flag. It does take up lots of space though, because when installing a new version of some packages the old package is stored in /var/spool/repackage. DPKG does not have this feature, nor does apt-get. Synaptic a GUI front end for apt might. You can use DPKG to downgrade a package using the previous .deb file. If you didn't have the previous package you couldn't do it. However if the upgrade removed any files that were no longer required the downgrade would not correct the dependencies. You would have to use apt to correct this and to avoid the dependency issues. Which is something that apt can do quite easily. I don't think I'd like DPKG to handle a downgrade anyways, I'd rather do it though apt if there was a choice. While .deb it is considerably superior to .rpm (personal opinion), .deb/apt-get still does have room for improvement. First thing is it still needs better logging. All installation information, good and bad should be logged somewhere for as long as the package is installed. Reverting to a previous version would be second. Chris > > > > ----- Original Message ---- > From: "Roger E. Rustad, Jr" <[email protected]> > To: SoCal LUG Users List <[email protected]> > Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2008 9:59:32 PM > Subject: Re: [LinuxUsers] Fedora Back On Track > > Lemme guess -- they've revamped yum and rpms to be as cool as apt-get/deb. > > No? > > <insert snarky comment about RH-based distros HERE> > > Chris Thomas wrote: >> After they had some of their infrastructure compromised, the Fedora project >> re-did all their update packages and signed them with a new key. The updates >> are now available. >> https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2008-September/msg00007.html >> >> Chris >> >> _______________________________________________ >> LinuxUsers mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://socallinux.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/linuxusers > > _______________________________________________ > LinuxUsers mailing list > [email protected] > http://socallinux.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/linuxusers > > _______________________________________________ > LinuxUsers mailing list > [email protected] > http://socallinux.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/linuxusers >
