[SATLUG] Re: Yum considered harmful for compiling your own software?

[Robert Pearson]

On Nov 5, 2007 9:56 AM, Henry Pugsley <henry.pugsley at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/2/07, Robert Pearson <e2eiod at gmail.com> wrote:
> <snip>
> >
> > Maybe we are lucky to have package managers that work as good as they do?
> > The two best I have seen are Debian dpkg and SuSE YaST2 and I have
> > seen both of them become confused.
> > I'm not sure how much difference the "deb" vs. "rpm" database management makes.
> >
> > OS vendors don't see package managers as "value add" software.
> > Certainly not on free OS software.
> >
>
> I think the difference between APT and RPM is that APT was built
> around dependency resolution, and with RPM it was an afterthought.
> This is what pushed me to Debian in the first place .. when I first
> installed Red Hat 5.2, my video card was not supported (yay ATI) so I
> did not install any X packages.  When the ATI support was finally
> built, I tried to install X11 and Gnome.  After fighting through 18
> levels of package dependencies and still not having a working X
> system, I blew away Red Hat and installed Debian (which is what the
> ISP I worked for used).  What's silly is that the Red Hat installer
> could handle resolving package dependencies, but after the system was
> installed you were on your own.
>
> Yum and up2date are a step in the right direction, but there is still
> something not quite right about them.  Yum takes 45 minutes to
> calculate a dist-upgrade and it takes APT less than a minute.  up2date
> is a little faster than yum, but it seems to get stuck in dependency
> loops very easily.  It also does not handle uninstalling dependent
> packages.  RPMs themselves are a pain to work with because you have to
> use nutty cpio commands to unpack an RPM on a system where RPM itself
> is broken.  I've had to use a Debian server with alien several times
> to fix an RPM-based system with broken libraries.
>
> -Henry
> --

I've switched from openSUSE 10.2 to Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy.
My question is "How comfortable are you using alien?".
The basis for this question is my experience with mixing RPM repositories.
A nightmare...
Now we are talking mixing mixed RPM repositories with "deb" repositories?

My current order of preference for Ubuntu is:
1) a "deb" package
2) a tar file
3) then alien and an RPM (if I have no  other choice)
3a) I am looking at compiling source and creating my own "deb" package
Then I'm my own repository. Not the way I want to go.

I am also wondering how much longer the "free support net" of packages
and package managers
will survive. I had pinned my hopes on RPM because Redhat had a big
stake in it and they had gone commercial.
The jury is still out on that one.

The recent experience I had with "packman" and  openSUSE was an eye opener.
This was a "packman" server contraction and then a "mirror" problem.
It apparently took the repositories several days to get the updated
locations for "packman" correct.
Even the good mirror sites had problems because the "packman" links
kept changing.
There were two "packman" sites that were stable through the whole mess
but I wasn't using those. Too slow.

It was easier in Unix. The hardware vendors controlled the software
and the package management.
"One size did not fit all" as is the hope for Linux.
I contributed to the Sun package manager because I had a working
package management system in place.
Once Sun delivered a working package manager I haven't done any work
in this area.
Prior to Sun's package manager you had to "DIY or Roll Your Own", if
you were a "poor boy" on Open Systems.
The Sun package manager was a real blessing.
It freed up a lot of time and resources from configuration management
tasks and IT WORKED!

I still have problems with "recursive dependency". I believe it is
"bad programming". Easy to say and do when you control all the
development.
In today's Open Software it is the order of the day.


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