Re: [MiNT] Fwd: Re: Re[2]: GEM boost

[Mark Duckworth <mduckworth@atari-source.com>]

On Mon, 2005-07-18 at 17:52 -0400, evan@coolrunningconcepts.com wrote:
> Quoting Maurits van de Kamp <maurits@bassment.nu>:
> > And the trouble being...?
> 
> If you don't know - use it longer!
> 
> >> Last I knew people didn't buy their ST machines for ANY of the little
> >> projects that exist as RPMs for MiNT.
> >
> > I don't know anyone who bought their ST especially for MiNT at all.
> 
> My point was neither the history nor the future of Atari should be the RPMs on
> sparemint.  They are just ports of Linux apps.   There seems to be this
> mindset
> to make MiNT into Linux, and Linux is already available, so please DON'T!
> 

PSSSSH.. Part of the beauty of freemint is the fusion of a gnu system
and GEM.  MiNT will never be linux...  so chill.

> > That has nothing to do with RPM. It can be used to install Atari-specific
> > software as well. The software you use ISn't rpm, it's just managed by rpm.
> 
> Traditionally, Atari software is installed by copying it anywhere you
> like, and
> maybe copy the .RSC file as well.  It can be moved anywhere at anytime,
> and you
> can delete it by simply removing it from your drive - toss it in the
> trash can !
> 
> Thats user-friendly.
> 

Sure, we'll just unzip and place into a folder programs that are
dynamically linked.. Why not?  Why bother with package management when
we can emulate the f*ing mess that is windows.

> Now, for RPM to be effective, it has to be universal.  Everything has
> to be RPM,
> or at least all libraries and files that may have a dependency on any
> other part
> of the system.  So, if windom becomes a dynamically loaded library distributed
> via an RPM  - which seems to be the direction we're heading - then all GEM
> programs will have to be installed via RPM.  Now, due to changes of the windom
> library, an upgrade is requried :
> 
>     rpm -ivh mygemapp.rpm
> 
> so that fails because it says windom is too old ... so they find and
> download a
> newer one:
> 
>     rpm -Uvh windom-x.y.rpm
> 
> This may fail and say that 10 other packages need the old version!
> 

Yes, this is an api change.  You can have both versions of windom
installed. 

You seem to forget that we are a small community and can bend the rules
a bit.  Fact is the entire sparemint tree is completely broken in that
conflicts and requires are not properly specified for many packages.
This will need all fixed up for a proper dynamically linked system.  And
you're talking about a dream problem.  I wish we had dynamic shared lib
api problems because it would mean we had dynamic shared libs!

> And yes, I have seen things exactly like this in the past on redhat systems.
> 
> And no more deleting something with the thrash can :
> 
>      rpm -e mygemapp.rpm
> 
> 

Well since I'm building a GEM package manager... Whatever...  

> > What's so user-unfriendly about rpm? Is "rpm -Uvh package.rpm" so hard to
> > type?
> 
> Since when did Atari users think thats its OK to go to shell prompt to install
> software?   This makes me really sad.
> 

You won't have to.

> >> Now I know why 50% of the Atari users are using MagiC!
> >
> > Sure, it's because they hate RPM. (Though my guess is that 99% of those MagiC
> > users don't know what it is).
> 
> As long as MiNT is targetted towards Linux users, the traditional ST
> user won't
> be interested.

It's not targeted that way.  GNU ports need GNU package management.  If
you don't like it, don't use it.  Last time I checked MiNT can be
installed with kernel + AES and done.  If that's fine for you, oh well.

Thanks,
Mark