Re: RPM

[" Raymond A. Ingles" <inglesra@frc.com>]

On 31 Mar 1997, Manoj Srivastava wrote:

> Hi,
> >>"meierrj" == meierrj  <meierrj@frc.com> writes:
> 
> meierrj> Debians,
> meierrj> A. How can one install debian packages without giving
> meierrj> superuser privelages to the person who assembled the package?
> meierrj> B. How can one cleanly remove a debian package?
> meierrj> C. How can one cleanly remove a debian package that failed to
> meierrj> install?
> 
> meierrj> I think the answers to these questions are serious enough to
> meierrj> decide whether Debian linux will grow or die.
> 
> 	Hmmm. Please note that there is no vendor that produces an OS
>  whose upgrades meet teh above criteria, so saying that this is
>  serious enough to decide Debian's fate needs to be backed up. (Has
>  not affected the fate of MS, IBM, DEC, HP, or SUN operating systems
>  in any perceptible fashion).

 I'll take a stab at backing it up.

 Douglas Stewart earlier in this thread brought up the spectre of 
Betamax, a technically superior format that nevertheless failed in the 
market. (It still exists in certain niche areas but is not where most of 
the universe is heading - VHS won the "VRC wars".)

 Technical superiority is no guarantee of success. Except in specialized 
markets, it may not even be the most important factor. I love Linux, and 
I think we can all agree that it is tecnically superior to any Microsoft 
offering, but I doubt very strongly that it will depose Windows as the 
desktop king. That's fine with me; I don't think that all computer users 
need Linux's power, and I'm happy to let Microsoft cater to the users who 
want to avoid working with computer internals. (I drive a stick shift, 
but I don't begrudge others their automatic transmissions.)

 What Debian is "competing" for is the mindshare of those users who do 
want the freedom that Linux provides. The key difference between Debian 
and other distributions is dpkg. It is in some ways superior to RPM and 
Slackware's pkgtool. But remember, even technical superiority is no 
guarantee of success. There are costs associated with using Debian.

 You have to wait for software to be "Debianized", or you have to do it 
yourself. More than that, as Bob brings up, you are at the mercy of the 
package author - buggy (likely) or malicious (possible) packages can do, 
literally, unlimited damage. Are the benefits of Debian worth the costs?

 I submit that, as things stand, probably not. Note that a whole lot of 
sources, including some Debian fans on this list, do not recommend Debian 
as a 'first distribution' to newbies. Slackware may be a pain to upgrade, 
and doesn't provide good security defaults, but it has been pretty 
thoroughly debugged as far as not crashing early on. Red Hat has spiffy X 
intallation and administration utilities.

 I think that if Debian can find a way to mitigate the damage from buggy 
(or malicious) packages, it ca be worth the costs. Technical superiority 
is no guarantee of success... but *overwhelming* technical superiority 
is pretty close to a guarantee. One of the promises of Debian is 
simplified and trouble-free upgrades. If we can really provide that...

 Sincerely,

 Ray Ingles               (810) 377-7735                inglesra@frc.com

 "The meek can *have* the Earth. The rest of us are going to the stars!"
                       - Robert A. Heinlein