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Sheepdogj15
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 Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2005 1:27 am Post subject: RPM hell and portage |
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I just got done reading a good essay on how bad the RPM system is, and they offer Gentoo's own Portage system as the solution to the stupidities of RPM:
http://www.germane-software.com/~ser/Files/Essays/RPM_Hell.html
It is very interesting. I recall working with RPMs when i was using Fedora Core on an old computer... i think i updated the system once, and after that i could never install new apps via RPMs. Portage, on the other hand, has worked out really smooth for me.
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Master Shake
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| Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2005 1:30 am Post subject: |
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yeah the application rpm2targz is very useful for that also. I never liked rpms either for that reason.
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Sheepdogj15
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| Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2005 1:41 am Post subject: |
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yeah. i occasionally use rpm2targz for applications that i want but need portage to not be aware of (e.g. 32bit apps; i'm using amd64). it's a very handy tool.
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Shadow Skill
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| Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2005 5:29 am Post subject: |
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I remember this article from the FC forums awhile back, and he is right essentially, although I would add that the mixing of binary and source code on a wide scale is all but impossible with any distro because the management systems do not posses the proper mechanisms to actually address such a fusion.
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Q-collective
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| Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2005 6:47 pm Post subject: |
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| Shadow Skill wrote: | | I remember this article from the FC forums awhile back, and he is right essentially, although I would add that the mixing of binary and source code on a wide scale is all but impossible with any distro because the management systems do not posses the proper mechanisms to actually address such a fusion. |
Indeed, binaries are too 'limited' for use in a sourcebased distribution.
Let's just forget the binary world, compiling isn't such an issue as it was a few years ago, right? And ofcourse software gets bigger and bigger, but compiling getting faster still wins it from software getting bigger 
Example: OOo2 compiles in a lot shorter time the OOo1 did, then we have gcc4 which compiles a lot faster then previous versions did, so compiling OpenOffice.org in 1/4 of the time might actually become a reality now  |
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Shadow Skill
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| Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 3:29 am Post subject: |
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LOL I would agree with you if I knew everyone had amd 4800+'s overclocked to 3ghz and 2gb's of dual channel ram.....I think mixing actually works with BSD though Ports and pkg_add seem capable of detecting that these things are installed and upgrading them or spamming a bunch of warnings about the different versions...My preliminary experiences lead me to hope that BSD might actually have another part of that equation.
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Ware wa mutekinari.
Wa ga kage waza ni kanau mono nashi.
Wa ga ichigeki wa mutekinari.
"First there was nothing, so the lord gave us light. There was still nothing, but at least you could see it." |
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Sheepdogj15
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| Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 4:00 am Post subject: |
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BSD is pretty cool... i used to use FreeBSD, which has a port system like Portage. (I only don't use it now because i couldn't get all the thing i wanted to work on AMD64.) it was actually very nice... i suppose the main reason i went to Gentoo when i converted to Linux was because i was used to the port system.
they make 4800+'s now? i didn't think it's been that long since i've been proc shopping 
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Shadow Skill
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| Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 4:35 am Post subject: |
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| Sheepdogj15 wrote: | BSD is pretty cool... i used to use FreeBSD, which has a port system like Portage. (I only don't use it now because i couldn't get all the thing i wanted to work on AMD64.) it was actually very nice... i suppose the main reason i went to Gentoo when i converted to Linux was because i was used to the port system.
they make 4800+'s now? i didn't think it's been that long since i've been proc shopping |
The 4800+ is a dual core cpu, that I wish I could afford.
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Ware wa mutekinari.
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Wa ga ichigeki wa mutekinari.
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Sheepdogj15
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| Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 4:45 am Post subject: |
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oooh, i'm so drooling on myself 
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curtis119
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| Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 5:09 am Post subject: |
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Portage FULLY supports binary packages. That's all I'm going to say. Look it up if you want details.
*hint* firefox-bin *hint*
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Shadow Skill
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| Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 10:25 am Post subject: |
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| curtis119 wrote: | Portage FULLY supports binary packages. That's all I'm going to say. Look it up if you want details.
*hint* firefox-bin *hint* |
I think alot of people are aware of this however you need a much larger pool in order to be able to tell if the thing really works than what is available officially. [I am aware of the community binhosts, but using those is asking for hell in the event we get official binary repositories, seeing how these sorts of things go (see Fedora and the pain of livna/dag/at/freshrpms version hell.) ] Also without inline reverse dependency resolution I'm not even sure this is something you would want to even experiment with, with the community binhosts.
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Ware wa mutekinari.
Wa ga kage waza ni kanau mono nashi.
Wa ga ichigeki wa mutekinari.
"First there was nothing, so the lord gave us light. There was still nothing, but at least you could see it." |
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curtis119
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| Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 11:17 am Post subject: |
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| Shadow Skill wrote: | | curtis119 wrote: | Portage FULLY supports binary packages. That's all I'm going to say. Look it up if you want details.
*hint* firefox-bin *hint* |
I think alot of people are aware of this however you need a much larger pool in order to be able to tell if the thing really works than what is available officially. [I am aware of the community binhosts, but using those is asking for hell in the event we get official binary repositories, seeing how these sorts of things go (see Fedora and the pain of livna/dag/at/freshrpms version hell.) ] Also without inline reverse dependency resolution I'm not even sure this is something you would want to even experiment with, with the community binhosts. |
http://chinstrap.alternating.net/
I was mainly pointing out to shadow skill that portage does indeed support binary packages and that they integrate perfectly with the rest of the system. I should have quoted him.
| Shadow Skill wrote: | | I remember this article from the FC forums awhile back, and he is right essentially, although I would add that the mixing of binary and source code on a wide scale is all but impossible with any distro because the management systems do not posses the proper mechanisms to actually address such a fusion. |
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groovin
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| Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2005 5:12 am Post subject: |
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i have lots of rpm hell memories from RH7 and 8. recently i fired up qemu and installed Fedora Core just to check it out... yum feels kind of clumsy... it might have just been me not using it to its fullest, but when i first started using portage and freebsd ports, it just felt 'smooth'... thats the best way i can describe it.
i downloaded a trial of RHEL4 and played around with up2date and rhn, it worked great... my complaint was the lack of software available and if i wanted something more customized, i would have to put my own rpm together using rpmbuild or something. but otherwise RHEL is a very well thought out system... the software alone isnt worth the pricetag, but i guess thats where the support comes into play. |
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Suicidal
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Joined: 30 Jul 2003
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| Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2005 8:22 am Post subject: |
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| groovin wrote: | i have lots of rpm hell memories from RH7 and 8. recently i fired up qemu and installed Fedora Core just to check it out... yum feels kind of clumsy... it might have just been me not using it to its fullest, but when i first started using portage and freebsd ports, it just felt 'smooth'... thats the best way i can describe it.
i downloaded a trial of RHEL4 and played around with up2date and rhn, it worked great... my complaint was the lack of software available and if i wanted something more customized, i would have to put my own rpm together using rpmbuild or something. but otherwise RHEL is a very well thought out system... the software alone isnt worth the pricetag, but i guess thats where the support comes into play. |
The only reason I see that RHEL is a success is that some vendors require it; Luckily for me I can get it for $50.00 but I only run it on boxes that I absolutely have to.
Its performance to me feels clumsy next to gentoo; not sure if its the optimizations or the thinner kernel.
Back to RPM though I built a few a while back until I read the nmap SPEC from the SRPM which stated absolutely no ssl support at all due to the linking; I thought uhh no thanks Ill just stay with gentoo. |
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Filan
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Joined: 10 Sep 2003
Posts: 48
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| Posted: Sat Jul 02, 2005 7:09 pm Post subject: |
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| i switched to Gentoo because i got tired of dependancy errors with RPMs. portage downloads and installs everything i need. |
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Sheepdogj15
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| Posted: Sat Jul 02, 2005 7:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Filan wrote: | | i switched to Gentoo because i got tired of dependancy errors with RPMs. portage downloads and installs everything i need. |
yes. nice, isn't it?
sure, you get errors from time to time, but nothing's perfect. at least you can usually find a way to solve a failed build by searching the bugzilla or the forums.
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