why do ppl hate...

[Stween]

... RPMs and the whole RPM package management system?? I have noticed a lot of ppl slagging it off, and at the same time praising the .deb management system

So whats the real difference between the two? Do either of them surpass downloading the source and compiling for yourself?

I have never used a debian-based distro so i dont know about .deb's, but RPMs got me through learning the basics of a linux system, so why do they seem to have such a bad name??


Stween.

[iresprite]

I don't know why people might suddenly be slagging it. I think one of the possible weaknesses of RPM's is that it depends on your file system being laid out in a specific way. IF you try to force things by installing a Redhat RPM on a SuSE box (as I did), you could conceivably hose a few things (as I have).

As a further note, is it just me or is Slackware experiencing a revival? I've just seen a lot more people lately who are emphasizing the DIY aspect of the system.

Peace, Iresprite

[Bully_Crist]

RPMs are the most horrid creations I can imagine... it's almost impossible to install new software without breaking something, or having to install some new set of libraries, or whatever, and then breaking something else... in other words, the RPM system is pure crap

apt-get all the way, baby!! :)

[Bully_Crist]

downloading the source and compiling it yourself works, too, I guess :rolleyes:

[milanuk]

I think that has to do w/ that in the beginning when RPM's came out, it was such a new and novel concept, to most people, that it was widely accepted. So RedHat and the rpm format prospered. So much so that there started being multiple spin-offs of RedHat, and other companies that were not directly RedHat derived (like SuSE) started using rpm as well as their 'standard' package format. This led to the problem that there really isn't a "standard" rpm format, or build spec, that is adhered to by everyone. Contrast this to Debian, where there is really just Debian, w/ a few relatively minor spin-offs such as Libranet, Corel, Storm, and now Progeny, none of which have endeavored to significantly change (AFAIK) their filesystem layout from the "standard" Debian way. So deb packages from one will most likely work on another, while an rpm package from Redhat has limited chance of success on Mandrake or SuSE. Not impossible, but the odds for failure is greater.

Also, the rpm package manager has somewhat limited abilities to resolve dependencies -- if you're lucky, it might tell you what package it needs to satisfy it's dependencies. I've had several times where it tells me that it needs a specific file -- and I had to figure out what package it belonged to :( Debians apt-get is what, IMHO, is the big difference. It provides a method to automagically resolve dependencies, and debs have been built to take advantage of it. Hopefully in the future, apt-rpm/rpm-get/whatever the hell it's called will provide this ability for rpms as well, and rpms will be built to take advantage of that. But for right now, the rpms that are out there are by and large so disorganized that it would be difficult to implement an apt-get system that was really as useful as the debian version... Time will tell.

Monte

[Molecule Man]

FUD about RH and MDK. The only time a RH RPM does not work on Mandrake is if it is either a non-standard like i686 on a K6 computer, or the rpm was built using a newer set of libs (ie a RH7 rpm on a MDK7.2, just won work, but then RH7 doesn work on RH6.2 either). Yes, you can run into probs if you take a RH RPM and try to install it on SuSE or Caldera, but it usually works fine on the rest of the RPM distros.
http://rpmfind.net is an invaluable tool if you need to find a rpm that contains a particualr file. Also go to the home page of whatever prog you are trying to install, likely they will tell you what you need to install first. I have never had a problem fullfiling dependancies.

APT is good, but fairly useless if you don't have a high-speed connection.