On Tue, Jun 15, 2010 at 5:42 PM, Andrew S. Baker <[email protected]> wrote: >> In contrast, all the current Linux distributions were designed >> "right" the [first] time, with strong package management from day one. > > I don't know that I would say that Linux *always* had package management > going well -- certainly not all distros.
Well, there was a bit of weasel-wording on my part there, with "all current distros". :) If you go back > 10 years or so, yes, there were significant distros without strong package management. But well before 2000, anything without good package management either got upgraded to add it, or became obsolete or extremely marginalized. (One could argue about Slackware, but they consciously made the decision to be package management luddites. It takes all kinds.) Even Red Hat 2.0, circa 1995, had RPM, which knew enough to check dependencies and handle upgrades if you had all the local packages. As you note, Debian had the early advantage with a comprehensive solution for solving dependencies and automatically downloading packages. Red Hat didn't do that until 6.something (c. 1999). But other tools were available to do it; I used to use one called (IIRC) "autorpm". They used all the same dependency info already included in RPM packages. There was no separate update infrastructure to create, just an index of package info that could be rebuilt from the original package files at any time. Certainly, things have become better over time, but the foundation for solid package management was there 15 years ago. That gave Linux a real leg up. I certainly don't envy Microsoft the task of trying to retrofit a solution on to Windows, and then convince everybody to use it. But that's not my problem; keeping our software as up-to-date as I can *is*. :-) (On that note, back to our Win 2000 migration.) -- Ben ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
