On Sat, 2002-12-14 at 17:47, -JhAzEr- wrote:
> 
> i think what ian wanted to say is, that you *must* have a packaging system to be 
>able to maintain your systems. whether it's rpm/apt/urpmi/pkgtool etc.

There is no such thing as URPMI packaging system.  Mandrake is an RPM
distro which uses URPM related tools to make the (RPM) packages easier
to handle with.  URPMI is a Perl script to install or upgrade RPMs. 
Likewise with URPME, is a Perl script to remove RPM packages from your
system.

Now, what is the difference between native RPM command over URPM command
and why Mandrake Users encourages to use URPM related commands? 
Consider the following sets of examples:

[1] # rpm -ivh package.rpm

[2] # urpmi package.rpm

The first one "installs" your RPM package for your system.  The main
problem with this one is "What if the RPM package you want to install
has a lot of dependencies?".  The best thing you would do is either you
search all the dependencies for one CD to another or download everything
from your nearest mirrors or, if you think that it's not important to
you, you will not install that package anymore.

- The second one "installs" or "upgrades" the RPM package you want to
install.  If your URPMI database found that the RPM package you want to
install is a newer version and you have an older version of that
package, except for "kernel", it will automatically "upgrade" it only. 
Now, if it has dependencies, it will search from any of your CDs or from
any URPMized mirrors (this is only applicable if you add media from any
mirrors).

Also, please take note that when you do a "# urpmi package_name", it
doesn't mean that the package you want to install is really in your
current directory.  Like for example, I may want to install the MPlayer
related packages from Penguin Liberation Front's mirror site because
MPlayer is just a contrib of Mandrake Linux 9.0 and is not part of the 3
CD Download Edition.  What I will do now is just URPMized one of the
mirror sites of PLF and if I already have the PLF's mirror site as one
of my "media", a simple:

# urpmi mplayer

will install everything you need to have a working MPlayer to your
system.

The second one is, I want to install a package and I know that it is in
one of my 3 CD Mandrake Linux 9.0 distribution.  For example:

# urpmi tetex

but since I already have one "UPDATE" media from one of the Mandrake
Linux's mirror site, and found out that there is an update version
(security bug fixes, etc.) of tetex with my tetex related packages in my
3 CD distribution, it will then choose to install the tetex related
packages from my mirror site and not in my CDs.

For more information about URPM, I would like you to visit
http://www.mandrakeuser.org/docs/basics/brpm3.html#intro

For those that doesn't have an Internet connection but purely a POP3
access only from their office, you can read it below.

- - - < s n i p > - - -
urpm - RPM Mandrake Style

Mandrake's 'urpm' ('User RPM') - introduced in ML 7.0 - tackles several
RPM weaknesses:

    * It provides a system of automatically solving dependencies by
offering to install or uninstall dependent packages. RPM only tells you
which files are missing or which packages would be broken.
    * It stores a full dependency set of any given location. RPM only
stores data of locally installed packages.
    * If configured, it fetches packages from the Net upon installation,
if they are newer than the packages on the installation media
(introduced in 8.0).
    * It supports 'installation on demand'. RPM has no such feature.
    * It allows globbing of archive names, easier and more extensive
package queries, automated updates and more.

'urpm' isn't meant as a replacement for RPM, it is meant to make common
RPM tasks easier. In many parts it resembles the package tool the of the
Debian GNU/Linux distribution, 'apt'.
- - - < s n i p > - - -

> i think maintainability (as per your definition of it)  only applies to enterprise 
>servers or mission critical servers, where re-installing is a SCARY process ;)

Yes and no.

Yes, because as what Ian said from the previous messages, what if you
are handling 50 servers per location and it so happen that there are
several SECURITY ALERT that you need to upgrade your existing packages?

No, because making your life easier with respect of the word
"maintainability" is NOT only limited to the enterprise servers.  For
example, if I can save at least 5 minutes of using URPMI over the RPM
command of installing some packages is already a big deal for me.  There
are several things I can work on with my 5 minutes, (like texting to my
friends and uhumm..., hehehe).

Good luck distro advocates!  =) hehehe...

---
MARVIN T. PASCUAL
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Tel. No. (+632) 9252053
Mobile No. +639193141254
Yahoo! ID: bintut

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