Dependancy problems

[Christopher Browne]

On 28 Feb 2001 11:51:08 EST, the world broke into rejoicing as
Derek Atkins <warlord@MIT.EDU>  said:
> What my mom needs to be able to do is basically run the install
> command and have it work:
> 
> 	rpm -i gnucash.rpm

I think the "right answer" for this is probably on its way...

On Debian, the way to do this is _not_ to do:
  dpkg -i gnucash.deb
[which is the directly analagous operation to what you suggest]
but rather:
  apt-get install gnucash
which reports on what the dependancies turned out to be, and proposes
installing them as well as gnucash.

There is an "AutoRPM" package for RPM-based systems that _sort of_ 
does this sort of thing; not quite "mom-ready."

The new Ximian "Red Carpet" tool also does this sort of thing; if you
were to request that GnuCash be installed, it looks up dependancies and
should install the lot of it.

I would think it a bad idea to put a whole lot of effort into pushing
vast quantities of stuff into "gnucash.rpm" that is _likely_ to
duplicate libraries and such that the user already has installed,
especially when things like apt-get and Red Carpet and autorpm are
likely to represent much better solutions to the problem.
--
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