[WBEL-users] Re: RPM Gui?

[John Morris]

Ok, this thread needs nuking anyway so why not liven things up while we
wait for update2 to settle out?

[mode=flame]

On Mon, 12 Apr 2004, Joe Brouhard wrote:

> >> Personally, i feel  its a MUCH more efficient and controllable system
> >> then any of the current linux package managers has..

Then I take it you haven't actually USED rpm or deb packages very much.

> Actually, it's a slight bit different.  SPEC files allow you to build
> binary RPMs.  The *BSD ports tree and Gentoo Portage build EVERYTHING from
> source.  There is nothing 'binary' about it.

So you have a CPU that runs source directly?  Perhaps you have Gentoo
running in a JVM or something?  Otherwise, everything ends up as a binary.  
The only thing 'binary' about RPM or DEB is that a source package gets
compiled into a binary and the prebuilt binary is the preferred form for
distribution.  And guess what, Gentoo is now shipping precompiled binaries
to allow new users to skip the day or so of compiling that used to be
required to bootstrap a new system.

There really isn't anything keeping an rpm based distro (or heck, you
could also hack up a new Debian variant) from appearing that only
distributed srpms, had enough of GCC + GLIBC on the installer to bootstrap
and built everything at install time.  Would that meet your rewuirements?  
Of course it would be kind of a masturbatory exercise so nobody has yet
bothered to do it.  Probably only a few developer months of work to add it 
to anaconda, so why not go for it!

> The SPEC file is not quite as complicated as the BSD ports or Gentoo
> Portage's .ebuilds tho

Oh really.  Care to name something an ebuild can do that a .spec + patches 
can't?

> There's no "package"... Period.  At all.  

a) Yes there is.  Just because Gentoo normally ships the source package
instead of the precompiled binary doesn't make it any less of a package
based system.  By package based I mean that before you can use a piece of
software with Gentoo someone must obtain the pristine sources and build a
PACKAGE consisting of the source, patches and a controlling script +
metadata allowing the original software to seemlessly interoperate with
the rest of the system.

b) See above, modern Gentoo does indeed ship binary packages now.  Guess 
they wanted a little more mindshare than dormroom dorks with nothing 
better to do than rebuild the same package that a hundred thousand other 
people have already built.

> I run Gentoo Linux at home and on a production server... and there are
> *NO* Packages.  Nothing binary.  Everything about Gentoo is to build
> from the source.  No exceptions.  The .ebuild is nothing more than a set
> of instructions, much like the SPEC file of RPMs, on how portage is to
> build this product.

I have always failed to understand this obsession with building everything
from source.  Usually the same people who whinge about how great
Mandrake/etc. is for shipping i586 packages instead of i386, not
understanding how things really work.  (See the WBEL FAQ).  Yes, some
packages benefit from optimizing for the local CPU.  Yes you can eliminate
some bogus dependencies on things you don't really need.  But in 90% of
the packages you are at best twiddling up a percent or two or saving a few
megs of drive.  With the prices of hardware these days, invest the $50 in
buying the extra horsepower.

> > Having a large collection of software is different then going and grabbing
> > random tarballs from the Internet and automagically installing them.
> 
> I'll have to agree here.  However, the ports and Portage system have a
> major advantage over RPMs - complete reverse dependency support.  yes, it
> creates a management nightmare on whoever managed the trees, however it
> does create a complete repository, whereas RPMs cannot do this very well.

Curious what you mean by a 'complete repository'?  Because if you are
talking about gross quantity of packages available I suspect Debian has
everyone else whipped bigtime. (Sarge is weighing in at 14 CD-ROMS!) But
if you could be bothered to go have a look at the rpm repos out there I
suspect you would find that Gentoo still has a long way to go before it
measures up in the size dept.  FreeBSD does have a very respectable ports
collection, but I doubt you would find any useful packages there that
isn't sitting in an apt repo somewhere a google search away.

But yes, reverse dependence support (by that I take it to mean it can 
build in support only for the packages you actually have installed.  i.e. 
xmms doesn't need support for artsd if you don't have it installed.) can 
be useful, but I question whether it is worth the price of building 
everything.  Especially since if it is really useful most large packages 
these days use subpacking to allow one srpm to build a bunch of small 
packages to allow optional supported components to live in a seperate 
binary rpm.

ok, I'm done venting and I now have my asbestos underroos on.  :)

-- 
John M.      http://www.beau.org/~jmorris        This post is 100% M$ Free!
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