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Re: RH4.2?



On Thu, 14 Aug 1997, Yaron wrote:

> First of all, on my Sun, SGI and Alpha systems, which do include various
> package management utils, I still prefer compiling my own. Ira, you
> yourself said you install an RPM, then compile the binary from scratch and
> replace the one that came with the RPM. 

basically I wish there was a simpler way, like installing the entire RPM
minus binaries, that would have helped, or if software builders would have
built into their makefiles a small section that updates the RPM-db if it
exists (RPM is not only written with Linux in mind, it's supposed to work
on any Unix theoretically). some Makefiles call "install", maybe we should
patch that instead?

> Now, while package management methods, including RPM, do have advantages
> (tidy systems, saves time, etc), RPM is still pretty flakey. The reason
> the whole discussion about upgrading to 4.2 started was that I tried
> upgrading to a newer pam, which required a newer pamconfig, which in turn
> required the version of pam I was trying to install. Thus making them both
> un-upgradable (I am _not_ going to force no-dependencies on something that
> can lock me out of my system). 

like I told you, this is even more of a problem. even if you force one and
then the other installs OK, the builders of RH4.2's pam packages did not
mention all the dependencies or something, since I couldn't login to my
system after that. I had to force a downgrade and then manually relink the
libraries too :-( that's why PAM 0.57 is part of RH 4.2 and not in the
update directory of 4.1.

> I seriously doubt every Linux binary will ever be linked against
> libRPMversion, although the idea is tempting. But when there's so many
> different ways to compile Apache (or ls for that matter), it's near
> impossible ("GNU ls v2.11.3.2.2232.nocol.8bit.static.ncurses.ELF..."). I'm
> sure RPM _will_ advance more, and I'm not saying it's not useful, but
> tracking every possible version of every binary/library, well...

tiny binaries like ls can include all the features and hae them
individually turned on at will (the way ls doesn't have color turned on by
default on RH). monsters like apache or even the kernel itself are heavily
moving towards partial or full modularity, Apache will soon even support
dynamicly loaded modules... everything is possible if RPM grows to include
options in the installation process (like {don't shoot!} Microsod's
installshield)


   -------------------------------------------------------------
   Ira Abramov          <ira@scso.com>        Scalable Solutions
   POBox 3600, Jerusalem 91035, Israel       Tel (972)2-642-6822
   http://www.scso.com/~ira   Check out: http://www.linux.org.il