Are mixed package types (.deb, .zip, .rpm) in a repository harmful to apt?
Currently wondering if it is feasible to use a single APT repository
as distribution
channel for multiple package types. (With a custom and simpleminded apt-get
reimplementation for the zip type.)
I'm planning on utilizing it for small scripts and zip bundles in
addition to regular
.deb packages. Tests so far seem to suggest that apt-get doesn't trip over their
presence.
But does it handle them gracefully? If e.g. two entries in "Packages" share a
basename and version number, but one is *.deb and the other is *.zip - will
apt-get know from "Filename:" which to retrieve per default? Does it look at
the suffix?
Or is apt-main prepared for any other package formats? I'm mainly hoping so,
because there was apt-rpm. Not sure if that's still a thing. But the
apt repository
scheme looks closest to a probable universal standard, and very suitable to
my fringe use case.
If it's not advisable currently (is APT2 still in the making?), then
which workaround
would you suggest?
There is for example "Architecture:" where I could use some faux entry "custom"
instead of "all" to make packages invisible to apt-get/python-apt. Or
otherwise I'd
just keep using a package name prefix for the *.deb packages.
Have a lo-fil zip2deb conversion tool that I'm currently using. As I
plan on keeping
system-installable variants of all packages in parallel to the
relocatable *.zip files.
It's really just the generalized package distribution scheme that I'm
interested in,
but rather not break my apt repository for the other stuff, nor set it up twice.
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