Re: on forming a new Linux Distribution
On Wed, 29 Apr 1998, Bruce Perens wrote:
> 9. A Random List of Other Goals.
> RPM as the package system - possibly with an APT port later on
> (is that what it's called now?). It's necessary to get the other
> distributions in on the project. We'd have to add a few missing
> features to RPM, but this would be pretty easy to do.
FYI I took a quick looksy over RedHat's web site, specificly the
descriptions of packages bit (I think it was the package finder or
something)
As I see it there are two major problems that preclude using APT with RPM
as it stands,
1 - They don't actually have package dependencies. They have
dependencies on files - big difference.
2 - They seem to lack a well formed index file, I couldn't find any
rpm index on their ftp site.
I took a -VERY- quick look some time ago, at first glance everything else
seemed about on par with dpkg. But if they are true, those are two very
major problems.
It might be smart to fork rpm (call it something else) and re-do the
header fields to be more sensible, then use APT to provide understanding
of the fields and use librpm for the actuall installing. Then you get all
the benifits of Debian's dependency system and the benifits of APT's
ordering sequencer, dependency engine, multi-source handing, (and
someday it's GUI too).
If #1 is really true there is zero point in making APT understand RPM,
90% of it's functionality would have to be disabled.
Jason
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