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Package management systems are one of the deepest divides between Linux distros.
One family uses .DEB - Debian and things made from Debian. What makes .DEB good is not the format itself or the basic tools (`dpkg`, `dselect`) that handle it; it's the meta-package-management tool on top, `apt`. Apt has automatic recursive dependency resolution. This means packages much be fetched from carefully-structured repositories, primarily over the Internet.
RPM is much more basic and for years didn't have a meta-manager on top and had no form of dependency resolution. I started to use Red Hat in 1996 or so and stuck with it for 2-3y. Installing something new usually meant going and finding and installing, in the right order, sometimes hundreds of libraries and dependencies. Certainly typically 4-5-6, maybe dozens.
It was a nightmare.
( Read more... )
One family uses .DEB - Debian and things made from Debian. What makes .DEB good is not the format itself or the basic tools (`dpkg`, `dselect`) that handle it; it's the meta-package-management tool on top, `apt`. Apt has automatic recursive dependency resolution. This means packages much be fetched from carefully-structured repositories, primarily over the Internet.
RPM is much more basic and for years didn't have a meta-manager on top and had no form of dependency resolution. I started to use Red Hat in 1996 or so and stuck with it for 2-3y. Installing something new usually meant going and finding and installing, in the right order, sometimes hundreds of libraries and dependencies. Certainly typically 4-5-6, maybe dozens.
It was a nightmare.
( Read more... )
