On Sat, 2003-06-21 at 14:49, Bob Proulx wrote: > Mathias Peters wrote: > > i need to install the db2 v8.1 personal edition on debian. the > > tar-file i got on ibm.com only produced some rpms that are installed > > via install-skript, so i can't use alien. does anybody know how to > > install the rpm package database on debian or how to install db2 > > somehow else? > > First I am not familiar at all with db2 from ibm.com. So I can only > talk in general terms. Is this free software such that others could > help with your install problems? Or is it commercial only? If free > then there will be lots of help. If commercial then is there any > ability to ask the vendor to support Debian directly? DB2 was originally developed for IBM mainframes as their big, mondo powerful database system. With it, they introduced a control language that could access and manipulate data via a near-english syntax called Structured Query Language, or SQL. This format was later copied by numerous other database developers and standardised to be the SQL we have today. It is most definitely not free software - it is one of IBM's cash cows, both for software licenses and support contracts. It is available to consulting partners (third parties who consult on systems or hardware for clients) at reduced or demonstration oriented free-of-charge licenses so that they can be familiar with its functionality - IBM finds that doing that sort of thing helps their sales of the software products, and hopefully the hardware too. Most software vendors of major commercial systems offer similar arrangements. I have this myself, and the installation scripts use 'rpm' to attempt the installation, which on Debian just won't work, period. It *could* be done by editing the installation scripts to replace 'rpm' with 'alien' for any actual installation calls. While the LSB is a great solution to handling this sort of system installation, it stumbles badly on Debian when confronted with installation scripts that explicitly call 'rpm' for the installation. For LSB to properly work in the way that people *envisage* such universal ability to install the software, either a "distribution neutral" installation command is needed (where on Debian, if it saw an .rpm, it would call 'alien' to do the conversion,) or 'rpm' *someday* should be extended on Debian to support the Debian installation database *as best as possible* given the .rpm limitations. The third option is to clue IBM into the advantages of releasing a .deb edition of their packages, given the position it holds amongst those that *know* Linux. -- Mark L. Kahnt, FLMI/M, ALHC, HIA, AIAA, ACS, MHP ML Kahnt New Markets Consulting Tel: (613) 531-8684 / (613) 539-0935 Email: kahnt@hosehead.dyndns.org
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