Re: RPM should be renamed to WTF

>From Eric G Ortego <[email protected]>, Tue, Oct 14, 2003 at 12:04:37PM -0500:
> Lars Damerow wrote:
> 
> >>From Eric G Ortego <[email protected]>, Tue, Oct 14, 2003 at 
> >>08:56:05AM -0500:
> >
> >>dependancys. Ironicly this is exactly what I hate about rpm's. Why does 
> >>a source package have to depend on other packages?
> >
> >Simple--you often need other libraries to be present in order for a 
> >compile to
> >work.
> >
> I see.  But that shouldnt differ from tgz's should it?  Or are most 
> rpm's binary packages? And if an rpm is a source package I don't see how 
> rpm improves anything.

tgz source distributions typically have the same requirements as source RPMs.
However, unlike RPMs, they can't tell you what they need. When using pure
source distributions like tgz files, you just have to know that gaim requires
gtk2, the gnome libraries, and gtkspell, for example. This is why people like
the dependency tracking in RPM; when you try to build a source RPM, rpm will
tell you when you don't have the right stuff installed, saving you lots of
guesswork.

Source RPMs greatly improve things for administrators by documenting all of the
steps used to build a particular binary package. When you have the source RPM,
you know what configure flags were used, what post-install steps were
performed, and so on.

The best way to make dependencies work well with RPMs is to only use RPMs
intended for your Linux distribution. This in itself can be a bit confusing,
but for me, as a rule, I don't install any RPMs that don't specifically say for
which distribution they're intended. If you run Red Hat, get your RPMs from Red
Hat, freshrpms, or other places that say "these RPMs are for Red Hat 9."

Also, dependency tracking is made much simpler with tools like apt-get or yum.
Give them a try; they pull in all required dependencies for you, and can be set
up to get binary packages only from repositories that are appropriate for your
Linux distribution.

cheers,
lars

___________________________________________________________
lars damerow
button pusher
pixar animation studios
[email protected]

Guenette's Non-Euclidian Conjecture:
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invariably wish to place the computer in the most distant location from the
office's power and networking facilities.