Matthew S. Hallacy wrote: > On Tue, Nov 04, 2003 at 02:11:08PM -0600, Daniel Taylor wrote: > >>The way the software packages are put together. Not as in plastic and >>cardboard, but the .deb or .rpm files themselves. > > > Sorry, you missed the sarcasm, please give an example of what is superior > about the debian package management system as compared to RPM. > By spec, nothing. Debian had better package managers sooner, and there seems to be better discipline in dependency recording among the packagers. > >>>*Please* will someone explain this dependencies issue? People like to >>>spout 'dependancy hell', 'dependency consistency' etc. without ever >>>providing any meat. It's like a marketing buzzword. >>> > > >>I forget that there are relative newbies present, sorry. > > > Ouch, was that an insult? > No. Just missed the sarcasm and took you seriously. > >>Get something in the wrong order and your >>whole installation can end up horked while you have to sort things out >>by hand. > > > rpm doesn't allow you to do this, you would have to use --force and/or > --nodeps. At this point you're on your own, and have no right to complain. > Neither does .deb. It happens anyway if a package you need fails to install correctly because of a missed/mangled dependency. I've had it happen on rpm and .deb based systems so don't assume superiority for either one there. > >>There are two parts to dependency management: >>1. How good packages are about listing their key dependencies. In my >> experience .deb packages are better in this. I don't know why, as >> there is no technical reason why they should be. > > > If foo needs bar, it needs it. Case closed. I see no reason why .deb > should be better than .rpm at saying 'i need BAR' > It isn't. But the Debian packagers seem more consistent about getting _all_ their dependencies noted in the package. > >>2. How good the package manager is about handling packages in dependency >> order. dselect+apt rocks in this area, though the UI is not what I >> would call endearing. Most of the "nice" package management frontends >> come up short in this area for me. > > > and apt4rpm does it just as well (if not better) > I haven't used an rpm based system with apt4rpm yet. I'm sure I'll need it eventually though. _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list