[Mageia-discuss] Package management system

Tue Sep 28 21:20:37 CEST 2010

On Tuesday 28 September 2010 19:34:09 Thomas Lottmann wrote:
+> > Le mardi 28 septembre 2010 à 20:02 +0200, nicolas vigier a écrit :
+> >
+> > So, for people who are not happy with the default, do not hesitate to
+> > test others packages managers and report issues ( for example, yum does
+> > requires specific indexes that we do not provides at mandriva, but we
+> > could add them if required, i guess ).
+>
+> ...[s]ince then, looking at Smart's GUI, it looks like it has not been
+> significantly improved since a long time. Lookign in the package's
+> history, the fixes show it is maintained only to prevent it from being
+> broken...
+>
+>... I know there are several people who are not satisfied with RPMDrake,
+> this because they prefer to have a package manager with a different
+> philosophy or other kind if conception. I believe Smart could then be
+> improved both in text and GUI if people are encouraged to develop and
+> work on it. It could offer yet another approach then for package
+> management.
+>
+>
+> Skiper
+
+I confess to a quite high level of ignorance about package managers, as I have 
+only ever known and used rpmdrake in its evolution since around 2000, but you 
+have both said things to make me think that some of the frustrations I have 
+experienced since 2008 Spring may be due to controllable features of the 
+package manager.
+
+The simplest analysis tells us that rpmdrake does its job admirably; point, 
+click and presto, your software is installed (OK, you may have to click a 
+couple more times to agree to the selected packages list).
+
+How much better could it possibly do this? What am I missing? You have both 
+mentioned alternatives, some of which I know by name, but in what way do apt, 
+yum or smart do this job any better?
+
+I realise that package managers are needed because humans have to add some 
+intelligence in the form of what libraries are needed to get a program to 
+run. I also know that sometimes humans get this badly wrong (try removing a 
+library that you know will never be used and ask yourself why rpmdrake wants 
+to remove over 200 packages with it!). Do other package managers manage to 
+avoid this embarassing and frustrating behaviour? or is it that it is just 
+easier to get it right with package types other than rpm?
+
+Richard
+