No, no...this is perfect timing. The other flamewar I'm in the list seems to be winding up. mharris, just won't leave it well enough alone, keeps butting in ruining the whole aggressive flamewar feeling of the thread with "information" and "facts" and "reasonable opinions." But now yer here, so I can just flame you..before someone more civil and knowledgable steps in and ruins my fun.
Well, I must say I'm extremely disappointed: this looks promising, but then you just leap straight into "information" and "facts" and "reasonable opinions." Hmph.
http://people.redhat.com/tcallawa/faq.html#apt-get
<snipped to avoid "long winded rants" :-)>
If Red Hat included apt into its distro, there would be an expectation that Red Hat would be able to support it and clean up after its messes, when it goes wrong or when it installs a trojaned application. You have to TRUST apt repository creators, and now I may TRUST them, and you may TRUST them... maybe Red Hat should NOT TRUST them, out of the box...if there is no way for Red Hat to be assured that the packages they provide meet a minimum QA specification.
Now you're just spoiling _all_ my fun. Thx for the faq url... Okay. This all seems to boil down to something like "we're happy for experienced users to go mess theyselves, but the simplicity is there to protect the newbies". Unfortunately for this sad excuse for a flamewar, I agree to some extent.
But... redhat-config-packages will
(a) install _any_ package from the file manager (I know there are dependency limitations, but let's keep going)
(b) apparently not keep track of these non-RH-CD ones
This gets back to a mismatch; I think the messages should match up with the behaviour. This is a simplified, apparently "safer" RPM manager. But you can still easily install non-official-CD packages, and it doesn't even track them. And if security and QA are so important, then why is it so easy to install another RPM manager and mess the whole thing up? "Well, you have to draw the line somewhere." I agree, but why not draw the line clearly? This current method doesn't guarantee you QA, in fact, as it stands, it may make it much harder to encourage QA because it doesn't track what it allows.
Do you give the power users what they need? Or do you protect newbies with a bad downloading addiction from hurting themselves. Hmm...which is the better business model
I don't think you can protect the newbies, nor maybe should we. (Notice the "we"? :-) I didn't want to be protected. They're armed only with a root password. What chance have they got? You learn.
The important part is clearly stating what you're about. The advantages are
(a) expectation: if users are warned that they're going into unsupported territory, they either won't try it or won't expect you to help them (as much...) if they do.
(b) avoidance of extra work: you stop fielding so many help requests
(c) there must be more than two advantages...
Like I tell my manager, "Take us with you. Don't make a decision and then let us know afterwards". My experience with 8.0 may have been typical; here I am with 7.3, and I can install anything I want, from anywhere I want, with a tool that pops up to help me. Now I install 8.0, and it's gone. Packages and functionality come and go, but this one was conspicuous.
I am hopefully that the linux user community can step up and provide an addon package management solution that addresses some of the security and trust issues that current systems have. http://fedora.mplug.org/
Me too. Why not have a package manager with two levels? It defaults to simple/newbie mode. If you try to install something non-official, it either won't do it or warns you with something scary like "Are you sure you want to install this? It's non-official and no-one at Red Hat will speak to you if you do!" That would have put me off in my newbie days. (For a while...) The second level is one you consciously choose to let it do whatever. I'm thinking that, with all of the package managers around, making something fit this spec wouldn't be so hard. It would be an attempt to recognise the practical realities of using GNU/Linux.
Phoebe looks good (actually I'm pretty impressed overall), but I still wonder about the conspicuous absence of advanced package management. The other popular distros are conspicuous by their inclusion, often, of several packages that do the same thing.
I guess the other distros aren't as focused on security....shrug..you'd have to talk to them about it. -jef
I'm guessing, but Deb and SuSE both supply a lot more packages. When I looked at YaST I was amazed. So I think the urge to find something else is reduced with these distros, something I've found a fair bit with RH over the years. As for Mandrake, they're in a weird class, and may be suffering for it - but, bless their hearts, they helped me out. My first Linux was a paid-for boxed RH 6.1. I wrestled with it for a while and then ran to Mandrake.
I guess one of the main issues is that RH walks both sides of the fence. They want/need to provide corporate-level QA, control, etc, and they also cater to the wild and wooly community of users who want to do anything. This isn't easy and I respect them for even trying.
Enough long-winded ranting; I take the point. I realise that stability, reliability and QA are important, caution on the part of RH is the better part of not going bankrupt, and I'll shut up (unless provoked).
And I'm also installing yum as I speak. And maybe rpmwiz as well...
- Marcus
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