Re: apt-rpm article -- the features we don't have

[Michael Vogt <mvogt@acm.org>]

Hi,

[please CC me, I'm not on the list]

> To install a package directly, with apt downloading any necessary
> dependencies:
>   apt-get install rpmver-2.0-13498cl.i386.rpm

Gustavo (maintainer of apt-rpm) has a version ready that supports http
and ftp installs beside local files. This is nice and it's a feature I
would love to see in debian apt (see #47379). And it's also nice for
the various apt front-ends (like synaptic) to have a way to savely
install local packages and get dependency resolution for that.

They implement it with a special indexfile (rpmSinglePkgIndex is a
subclass of the pkgIndexFile). Porting requires writing such a thing
for deb packages.

> There is something vague about improvements in the "upgrading
> algorythm" that may or may not apply to us.

I just did a (highly) unscientific test (apt-get dist-upgrade) with my
(mostly) up-to-date unstable system: 

apt-rpm (version 0.5.15cnc3):
----------------------------------8<----------------------------------
The following packages will be upgraded
  libxft2
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  libxft2-dev
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libxft-dev
----------------------------------8<----------------------------------

debian apt (0.5.14):
----------------------------------8<----------------------------------
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  gnome-core-devel libatspi-dev libbonoboui2-dev libeel2-dev
  libgail-dev
  libgal2.0-dev libglade2-dev libglademm2.0-dev libgnome-desktop-dev
  libgnomecanvas2-dev libgnomeprint2.2-dev libgnomeui-dev
  libgtk2.0-dev
  libgtkhtml2-dev libgtkmm2.0-dev libgtksourceview-dev
  libnautilus2-dev
  libpango1.0-dev librsvg2-dev libvdk2-dev libvdkbuilder2-dev
  libxft2-dev
  libzvt2.0-dev vdkbuilder2
The following packages will be upgraded
  libxft2
----------------------------------8<----------------------------------

So it looks like apt-rpm is doing pretty well (libxft-dev provides
libxft2-dev so there is no need to remove all those pkgs) in this
situation. 

> There is a bit about an apt shell which sounds mildly interesting.

I like the apt-shell feature (IMHO it's a good mix between apt-get and
higher level stuff like aptitude/synaptic) and I think we should have
it as well. Porting it over to (debian) apt is easy, but it breaks the
ABI as apt-shell uses new generic features from apt-rpm (I have a
proof-of-concept patch ready). 

> At least the first three things I've mentioned above would be nice
> features to have in debian. Not killer, but nice. Of course apt-rpm is
> abranch/fork from out apt, so I wonder how long it will be before we
> do..

There is some talk about merging between the projects
(#207400). Actually is fairly easy to compile apt-rpm on a debian
system (the diff is less than 500 lines). All there changes are either
in the rpm/ subdir or generic and documented (and it looks like they
don't break anything deb releated).


bye,
 Michael


-- 
Linux is not The Answer. Yes is the answer. Linux is The Question. - Neo