Re: Re: Can rpm packages from other linux distribution be used on Debian?
Rick wrote:
> Yes,I think so.but our procedure depend rpm format,
I think you are confusing a packaging format with your program. You
program undoubtedly depends upon shared libraries and other things.
But it is packaged into a distribution format. It can be packaged
into many different formats.
> and I found that it can't find files it need in deb DB,I had been
> tried to install it on debian,
> #rpm -ivh myproduct-xxx-xx.rpm
> the program will prompt: myproduct need perl >5.6, and the bash must
> be installed
As other people have written doing this is not a good thing. Put
yourself in the other position. I have a .deb file from Debian. I
want to install it on a RH system. Should I insist that you must use
dpkg to install it there? That would be just as silly as insisting
the reverse. A native packaging is always best.
A real example might help. On Debian only one MTA (mail transport
agents) can be installed at the same time. Installing a different one
pushes out the previous one. This makes it easy to switch between
MTAs. Just install a different one. Have sendmail installed?
Install postfix. Sendmail is removed as Postfix is added leaving
Postfix as the active MTA. Want to go back? Install the previous MTA
of choice. Everything works. It is very nice.
On later RH they use the alternatives for /usr/sbin/mta making it a
symlink to the currently active MTA such as one of sendmail or
postfix. It is possible to have multiple MTAs installed but only one
of them active[1]. This is a completely different method of managing the
current MTA. And after installation you must adjust the alternatives
and other things or your desired selected MTA is not configured. On
RH 7.3 (don't know about later versions) postfix has a lower priority
than sendmail for example.
Installing a package from a different system will not be written to
handle the other system's management methods. This is completely
outside the scope of just a package installation tool like dpkg or rpm
or even a dependency aware tool like apt or yum but encompasses the
larger problem of system policy. There are issues of naming
conventions and other such things to be taken into consideration.
I feel that the system policy which describes how packages
interoperate is where Debian is clearly ahead of the competition.
Bob
[1] Why have multiple MTAs installed? Only one can really be active.
It just causes problems. But this is legacy from RH usage. On RH at
bare metal install time is the only time you can guarantee the
dependencies are all resolvable. So RH users have been encouraged to
install everything from the CD at installation time regardless of the
sensibility of that because later they won't be able to do so. This
required RH to facilitate this using the Debian alternatives as a way
to have multiple MTAs installed at the same time but only one
operating. I see that as a hack on a hack.
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