Experiences of apt vs grab

Greg & all,

I thought I'd give apt for rpm a shot last week just for fun.  The short 
version is that I'm back to using grab again :)  Here's why..

apt-rpm
=======
PROS:
Very simple syntax (apt-get install)
transparent handling of dependencies (almost)
all rpm's are in a managed format in a centralized location

CONS:
all of the rpm's I tried to install were outdated and seemed to be the "boxed" 
RH rpms 
the rpm repositories at tuxfamily.org were VERY slow over the 2 week period I 
tried it (14KB/sec download on my T1, come on!)
always complained that seemingly "everything" needed PERL.  Which I did have 
installed from source, but it complained since it didn't see it in the 
repository.

In closing, I'd like to say that I really do like how easy it is to 'apt-get 
install' something. But the downside is that the rpm's must be controlled 
strictly and that seems to negate their 'freshness' as someone must manage a 
single archive.  I also really liked the dependency fetch.  Grab tries to get 
dependencies but it feels 'messy' every time I have to go through it.  Too 
many choices to make each time, and if one fails, the whole thing seems to 
blow up rather inelegantly.. But, I know this is the downside of working with 
poorly managed RPM archives and it's mostly not your fault, Greg.

Anyway,  keep up the good work.  I'm really glad you're still keeping the 
effort alive.  I'll continue to use it as long as I am using RPM's..

One more thing....   s/cought/caught/g  :)

-Dan