Debian, rpm and corporate world (was: Can rpm packages from other linux distribution be used on Debian?)
bob@proulx.com (Bob Proulx) writes:
>> 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.
Sure. Be if one can easily install rpm packages on a Debian system,
this would be a good message sent to the corporate world.
Currently there is big chicken and egg problem with Debian in the
corporate world. Corporate guys want to be able to install software
from ISV (like Oracle).
ISVs only provide their proprietary software as rpm because not many
corporation ask for Debian. Corporation do not ask for Debian because
most ISVs don't provide Debian packages.
IMHO, the only way to break this circle is to provide a way to install
rpm that doesn't look like a hack.
The example above "rpm -ivh myproduct-xxx-xx.rpm" would be
perfect. The trick is that rpm need not to be the genuine rpm. It
could be a program that would call alien, check the dependencies and
then call dpkg.
Or Debian could provide a 'drpm' that would do the same thing. The
name is close enough to genuine rpm to give the feeling that "yes,
it's supported" (it is also indeed a matter of subjective feeling)
The major difficulty is: the installation must check the dependencies
expressed in the rpm package by using the data stored in the Debian
package database. Without a dependency check, installing a big product
like Oracle will not be easy.
So the questions are now:
- does the Debian community want Debian to be used in corporate world
to run *proprietary* softwares ?
- Can tool like 'drpm' be reliable enough ?
Cheers
--
dominique.dumont@hp.com
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