David Brown wrote: > On Thu, Jul 03, 2008 at 01:37:10AM -0700, James G. Sack (jim) wrote: > >> Anybody care to shout or cry about any of these? > > Aside from large portions of the page just being plain wrong? > > Apt was a frontend for the Debian package manager, not slackware. > Comparing Apt and dpkg is kind of like comparing the C compiler with the > linker. > > It also seems to me that the author confuses several very different aspects > of package management. Is yum a package manager, since it still uses rpm > for package management. Some goes for apt and dpkg. > > Package management involves numerous tasks, which different people seem to > give different priority to. The multiple program solutions (yum/rpm, > apt/dpkg) usually solve these problems in different pieces. It makes more > sense when you break down the problems being addressed: > > - Building software from source. Most systems do this in a central place > and distribute the binaries. Gentoo usually has the package manager > user build the software as well. > > - Managing installed binary and config files. This involves keeping > multiple packages for overwriting the same files, removing old files > when removing or upgrading a package, and dealing with updating config > files when packages are upgraded. This last part is hard enough it > might deserve its own bullet point. > > - Determining dependencies. Figuring out what other packages need to be > installed is needed to have working packages. > > - Distribution of package data, including metadata, source, and binaries. > This is usually where package management security is the most concern. >
Nice critique. Makes me want to post it as a 'reader comment' at Distrowatch. [I haven't] Regards, ..jim -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
