Reinstalling as an opportunity

Donald Allen donaldcallen at gmail.com
Wed Sep 13 16:13:10 EDT 2006


On 9/13/06, Robert Heller <heller at deepsoft.com> wrote:
>
> At Thu, 14 Sep 2006 00:07:26 +0700 Norbert Klein <nhklein at gmx.net> wrote:
>
> >
> > Donald Allen wrote:
> > > ...take this as an
> > > opportunity to use a Linux distribution with top-notch package
> management,
> > > such as Debian, Ubuntu, or Gentoo. Some may disagree, but I don't
> think
> > > Redhat and Fedora Core <whatever> are in that category (remember --
> good
> > > package management not only involves good package management software,
> but a
> > > rich respository that isn't rife with dependency bugs).
> > Any comment about SuSE?
>
> SuSE is another RedHat 'spinoff' -- it too uses RPM, just like RedHat,
> FC*, Mandrake, etc. Just as good/bad as RedHat.  I would guess Donald
> Allen would feel the same way. There really isn't any more (or less)
> problems with RPM based distros than with what Debian, et. al. Yes,
> using RPM *bare* tends cause one to have way too much fun with
> 'dependency hell', but yum and the like take care of this, at least for
> the less experienced users.  I expect that Donald Allen has had some
> bad experiences with RPM in the past (and yes, before yum, 'dependency
> hell' was a major issue with RPM-based distros).  One difference: RPM
> is not really *source* based, unlike the Debian package management,
> which seems to more likey fetch source code and compile as needed --
> RPM-based distros don't fetch SRPMs and rebuild them.


Not true. Debian (and Ubuntu) primarily do binary package management. You
may be thinking of Gentoo, which emphasizes source-based packages, though
does offer a smaller world of binary packages (some packages are offered in
both source and binary form, others source-only, others binary-only -- the
latter happens mostly when the source isn't available; I think Opera is an
example).

 I am not sure if
> it is an advantage to anyone outside of developer types to 'install
> from source' -- many *end users* don't want to have to have -devel
> packages, source code, and tool chains cluttering up their systems.


Some think that you can end up with a better-performing system, especially
if your processor isn't the least-common-denominator and/or you use
aggressive compiler options.

*Most* of the dependency bugs seen with RPM based repositories show up
> when people do *binary* installs from different distros or try to build
> bleeding edge packages on older distros.  Otherwise 'dependency hell'
> mostly happens with manually downloading binary packages and using RPM
> 'bare'.  Yum adds a layer of smarts WRT dealing with dependencies,
> mostly by using RPM's --test option and re-searching the repository for
> missing packages.  Also, since RPM is a binary package mangement,
> dependency hell becomes more of an issue -- many 'dependency hell'
> issues can often be dealt with by rebuilding the package from sources,
> so long as compatible -devel packages are installed (including possibly
> *older* -devel packages then those used when the binary package was
> built).
>
> I had no problems downloading the RHEL4 RPM for GnuCash 2.0.1.  I did
> have to download the other RPM files that it depended on -- I knew to do
> 'rpm -hUv --test' on the (growing) batch of files until it stopped
> complaining and then was able to cleanly install things at that point.


You just made my point. RPM deals with the atoms -- you have to assemble
them into molecules yourself. Yes, it can be done, but it's more work than

emerge gnucash

or

apt-get gnucash

and more error-prone, as we've seen in countless messages to this mailing
list.

/Don


>
> > Norbert Klein
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>
> --
> Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933
> Deepwoods Software        -- Linux Installation and Administration
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>
>


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