Re: Base distro + Requirements definition

[Karl Trygve Kalleberg <karltk prosalg no>]

On 25 Jun 2002, Bruce Robert Pocock wrote:

I can only answer for Gentoo. I only made a handul of Debian packages.


> Features of RPM: do Debian, Gentoo/Bagheera have:
> 
> (1) GPG signature verification for packages?

Not currently. Is planned. Probably within a few months.

> (2) Ability to verify state of installed package?
>   i.e. check MD5sums & permissions of all package-owned files,
>    and ability to tell which of them are (config|var) files and 'should'
>    change under normal usage.

md5sum and timestamp check. no permissions and owner check, knows which
are config files, based on directories (policy dictates that all
configuration files should go into known configuration directories).

The checking for internal consistency among all packages is a bit lacking
currently, but is being worked frantically upon. (Ie, you should be warned
when unmerging a package that has dependants).

> (3) Ability to identify documentation for a package?
>   (this goes back to a RFE I have out on scrollkeeper, for users to say
> "tell me who owns this window, hunt down its executable, and then show
> me all the associated documentation" - "Click on any window to find help
> on that program" - analogous to "rpm -qldf /usr/bin/whatever")

Policy dictates where documentation should go, and its layout, so it can
be identified.

> (4) Packages can indicate prerequisites, conflicts, and "obsoletes"
> (e.g. "gnome-vfs-smb version 2.5 obsoletes gnome-vfs-extras versions <
> 1.2" or similar)

Yes, but not all packages are updated with all the necessary
information yet.

> (5) Packages can be rebuilt from source without user interaction? 

This is the most basic tenet. 

Issue emerge world, then come back the day afterwards, and all packages
will be compile from scratch, tweaked to your preferences (there is a
global preference file where you mark which features you want to build
into your packages, ie gnome support, ldap support, maildir support; then
all packages that have optional support for these features will have them
turned on).

The Gentoo build system can also output rpms for the packages it builds,
and could conceivably be modified to output source rpms, if we ever
thought that was necessary. deb support has been discussed briefly.


Karl T