Re: [MiNT] OSMD - introduction (fwd)

[Michael Schwingen <rincewind@discworld.dascon.de>]

On Sat, Sep 08, 2001 at 12:17:37AM +0200, Guido Flohr wrote:
> 
> RPM can do the same, provided that the packages are properly built.  Write
> a wrapper that figures out the correct order for the installation (maybe
> rpm will already do that, not sure), and then install all packages in one
> go, that's it.

Thats the problem I have. "Write a wrapper that will do it" is a bit
different from having the feature designed into the system from the
beginning.

> I personally dislike the Debian way of doing upgrades because for my taste
> it does too many things automagically behind my back.  With rpm I can do
> just the same but with exact control about the upgrade process.  I collect
> all packages I want to upgrade, try "rpm -Uvh [RPMs]" until rpm is
> satisfied and then upgrade exactly the packages I want (or cheat with
> /etc/rpmrc resp. --nodeps/--force).

You can do the same using dpkg -i.

However, I do not see why I would want to do that. apt-get displays in
advance what packages it will upgrade, and with which consequences (ie.
which additional packages are being installed, which are removed etc.), so
why would I ever want to do this manually?

> Another advantage of rpm is its ability to easily integrate foreign
> packages whereas systems like Debian or (Free|Net|Open)BSD are somewhat
> "closed" in that respect.

In what way?

Debian has the "alien" command which will install tar.gz/rpm/slp archives.

> Just a matter of taste.  Both Debian and the BSD systems are certainly
> high quality distributions.  But rpm is not necessarily inferior just
> because the Debian folks managed to upgrade from a.out to ELF without
> a reboot ages ago.  If a libc upgrade in a multi-user runlevel is
> reasonable on a production system is also debatable ...

Those were just examples - if the system is capable of doing these, it must
be designed the right way. I would not trust a wrapper script with such
tasks.

And yes, such an upgrade works just fine in multi-user mode when done right.
Even if you lock out all users and terminate services, I see no need to
actually do a reboot or switch to single-user mode.

cu
Michael