Re: Dummy

["Teilhard Knight" <teilhk@yifan.net>]

> On March 2, 2003 08:03 am, Teilhard Knight wrote:
> > > Kent West wrote:
> > > > Teilhard Knight wrote:
> > > >>> Kent West wrote:
> > > >>>
> > > >>> But
> > > >>> natively, Debian doesn't use the .rpm format
> > > >>> (although it can in many cases with the "alien" package).
> > > >>
> > > >> Thanks a lot, Kent. A friend of mine told me Debian takes Red
> > > >> Hat
> >
> > drivers
> >
> > > >> and to install it as simply as: rpm -ivh package_name. This
> > > >> must be news for
> > > >> you, so maybe I, through my friend, am contributing something.
> > > >> :o)
> > > >
> > > > Wow! You're right; I didn't know about the rpm command being on
> > > > Debian. But sure enough, it's on my box, and the man page says
> > > > indicates that it'll install rpms.
> > >
> > > The man page is lying.  rpm is there to be used by alien and to
> > > build rpms, it can't install packages because the rpm package
> > > database doesn't exist.  If you try to create an rpm package
> > > database in order to get it to work, don't expect your system to
> > > stay unbroken for long.
> >
> > I guess you are right. I tried today to install as a root using
> > rpm, and I got the reply you say: "database doesn't exist". Is
> > alien in the distribution of Debian or should I grab it apart? I
> > think I'll have a look.
>
> I've never had much luck installing anything with alien.  Unless it's
> something trivial, it will usually be broken in some way after
> install..


Any suggestions, then? I have been able to get the drivers in a .tar.gz
compressed file they say generically is for Linux, not what distribution.
Guess I'll have to find what to do with them. Thanks.

Teilhard Knight
The Extraterrestrial

Who ate my sandwich?