On Fri, Dec 13, 2002 at 01:03:11PM +0800, Ian C. Sison wrote: > And yes, there has been talk about bloat. What bloat? How exactly do you > define bloat? I define it as unecessary information or programs that > impede or slow down my prductivity. Can RPM be considered bloat? Of > course not. You can go your own merry way without even touching the damn > thing (as most 'tarball' enthusiasts do today). >
The bloat I think people refer to are the useless dependencies a lot of the prepackaged Red Hat RPM's seem to be afflicted with. For instance, almost everything depends on you having the openldap and kerberos libraries installed, even though most of the world doesn't use LDAP directory services or Kerberos systems. Why should EVERYTHING have to depend on these? Why do I have to be stuck with literally megabytes of excess baggage I don't need and won't ever use? I suppose the term "dependency hell" is one we're all familiar with. It's the reason why I've been using tarball from source installs ever since Red Hat 6.2. This speaks more of the fact that Red Hat's package management system is very badly designed, and their packaging policy is really silly. Granted, it's better than nothing, but having experimented with a few other distros, there really are better package management systems out there. -- Rafael R. Sevilla <dido at imperium dot ph> +63(2)8123151 Software Developer, Imperium Technology Inc. +63(917)4458925 _ Philippine Linux Users Group. Web site and archives at http://plug.linux.org.ph To leave: send "unsubscribe" in the body to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fully Searchable Archives With Friendly Web Interface at http://marc.free.net.ph To subscribe to the Linux Newbies' List: send "subscribe" in the body to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
