Re: .deb and .rpm package coexistance
I cannot agree more on Marcus' comments.
RPM is a mess. This is why Debian is good. If we allow RPM get into
Debian and mess up things, we should just go ahead to use RedHat. :-)
We came from RPM world when we first sold/supported Linux. Caldera was
the first distribution we marketed. After one more year, we could not live
with RPM. Every new release of RH had a new RPM which is not compatible
with the old one. RPM was not able to upgrade RPM itself. Caldera did
its best to modify RPM to ensure their packages would run across several
releases but couldn't not keep up anymore. Packages built on one release
would not run on the other. When we had problem installing X-CD Roaster
and asked the author who also happened to offer a RPM and he admitted he
even did not know why.
I believe what we need now is to do our best to build debian package for
every available application. Quite frankly, I had trouble to find
applications in RPM (usable) but have less problem to locate applications
in Debian. I think we have more than 2,500 packages in slink, right?
On the other hand, almost every commercial vendor provides .tar.gz for non-rpm
dists. The only exception I experienced so far is RealPlayer in glibc format.
We are thinking about converting these packages into Debian format. However,
we know we need to be careful not to break anything else. Debian is a _system_,
every package gets into it will be fully tested for its compatibility. This
is a whole new concept of software distribution and development under OpenSource
clauses. I do not know if everybody on this list understand its potentials.
I simply do not - the more I use Debian, the more I find its greatness. Totally
opposite experience of using RPM based systems.
Technically, Debian rules! We at Kachina have decided to focus on supporting
and marketing Debian instead of following so-called "mainstream." The excellent
work that Debian developers have done deserve some media attentions. We will
do our best to promote it proactively.
--ward
Ward Deng, Ph.D | Kachina Technologies, Inc.
Vice President and COO | PO Box 9307
Tel: 505-888-5934 | Albuquerque NM 87119
Fax: 505-888-5902 | info@KachinaTech.COM
Email: Ward.Deng@KachinaTech.COM | URL: http://www.KachinaTech.COM
On Thu, 8 Apr 1999, Marcus Brinkmann wrote:
> Date: Thu, 8 Apr 1999 19:49:26 +0200
> From: Marcus Brinkmann <Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de>
> To: Martin Held <heldm@ucs.orst.edu>,
> David Starner <dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org>
> Cc: Debian Devel <debian-devel@lists.debian.org>
> Subject: Re: .deb and .rpm package coexistance
> Resent-Date: 8 Apr 1999 21:08:35 -0000
> Resent-From: debian-devel@lists.debian.org
> Resent-cc: recipient list not shown: ;
>
> On Thu, Apr 08, 1999 at 02:55:31AM +0000, Martin Held wrote:
> > Wouldn't it be nice if dpkg could just go *poof* and do such a thing,
> > without converting the rpm?
>
> NO, this would be a bad idea. A very bad idea.
>
> It would give the impression that it may work reliable.
>
> Installing rpms on Debian machines is DANGEROUS. Installing rpms from SuSE
> on RH is dangerous, too. Same goes for any pair of Linux distros.
>
> If you want to help, join the LSB.
>
> Marcus
>
> --
> `Rhubarb is no Egyptian god.' Debian http://www.debian.org finger brinkmd@
> Marcus Brinkmann GNU http://www.gnu.org master.debian.org
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> http://homepage.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/Marcus.Brinkmann/ PGP Key ID 36E7CD09
>
>
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