Re: Simplifying package installation.

[allbery ece cmu edu]

On 28 Aug, whizbang wrote:
+-----
| > >       If some crappy-ass Unix variant doesn't have a package database
| > > that provides all the features of an RPM or DEB system, and the "Gnome
| > > Installer" falls back to .tar.gz as a last resort, then that is the fault
| > > of the O.S., not the fault of Gnome.  I still think .tar.gz is a good
| > > fallback.
| >
| > So do I, with reservations.
| 
| um... uh... i can't think of a unix with no package system (besides
| slackware). of course i'm not all knowing
+--->8

If you can't figure out a commercial *ix's package database format, it
might as well not have one.

| is rpm proprietary? i thought it was gpl (don't personally know what apt is,
| but from the context i would guess it is as well). rpm also has a mechanism
| for packaging source (not that i'm plugging rpm - i just am not familiar with
| other packagers)
+--->8

Doesn't matter.  RPM doesn't mesh with other package systems, and while
there are hackarounds to make it work on e.g. Solaris, they are exactly
that.  It doesn't understand Solaris packages, nor CMU ECE syncsets,
nor CMU depot collections --- all of which it would have to deal with
in order to work here.  And just to make it clear, the hackarounds
aren't acceptable.

The same goes for other package systems.  IT'S A NON-STARTER, FOLKS. 
Unless GNOME is to be Linux-only (and specifically Red Hat / Caldera /
S.u.S.E. / Mandrake-only) from now on, don't go that way.

(No, we can't upgrade the Solaris 2.5.1 boxes to some theoretical-and-
IMHO-highly-unlikely Solaris-7.1-with-RPM.  Don't go there, either; it's
a sore point.)

May I, however, drop in another model worth looking at?  It's the BSD
ports collection.

-- 
brandon s. allbery	[os/2][linux][solaris][japh]	 allbery@kf8nh.apk.net
system administrator	     [WAY too many hats]	   allbery@ece.cmu.edu
electrical and computer engineering					 KF8NH
carnegie mellon university	  ["better check the oblivious first" -ke6sls]