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    #1

    .deb vs rpm commentary

    This statement by GG was of very great interest to me and I would greatly appreciate it if possibly GG or others here could expand a little on it(considering the vehement defenders of each side(RPM and DEB).

    Here is the comment:

    RPM was a frequent problem though, and when I discovered the stability of the .deb packaging system using apt-get and/or synaptic

    So, again that was a very intriguing statement to me and I thought it might be of interest to others also.

    woodsmoke
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    #2
    Re: GrayGeek commented on the "stability" of the deb packaging system so would..

    At one time, RPM based systems could suffer what was called RPM-hell where the dependency-resolving became broken, and it would be difficult to near-impossible to update, upgrade, or install/uninstall things due to conflicting packages. Somewhat analogous to 'dll hell' in a windows system.

    While this pretty much does not happen anymore with RPM based systems, Debian's system has been much better at this for a much longer time.

    It really isn't about the package itself per se, but more about the underlying system that tracks and resolves what each package requires or is required by.
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      #3
      Re: GrayGeek commented on the "stability" of the deb packaging system so would..

      I started out on Linux many years ago with Fedora. When *buntu became available, I tried it out and immediately was impressed with the .deb system. Been here ever since. In those days, Fedora was crippled by dependency hell. There were two repositories that had to enabled to get non-free stuff (such as our Medibuntu). Each repository had different packages, but also had duplicate packages. So you might install a package from one repository, and run yum update, and get updates from the other repository. Many times it would break because of conflicting dependencies.
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        #4
        Re: GrayGeek commented on the "stability" of the deb packaging system so would..

        More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Packaging_Tool

        In my mind, APT is Debian's most important contribution to GNU/Linux.
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          #5
          Re: GrayGeek commented on the "stability" of the deb packaging system so would..

          Yes, apt was the other reason I switched from Fedora. YUM was excruciatingly slow. There was a rudimentary GUI front end for YUM in those days that was completely useless. Discovering Apt, and then Synaptic, I never looked back.
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            #6
            Re: .deb vs rpm commentary

            Hi guys.
            Those were very nice posts and the linky was very nice also.

            If anyone else wants to comment, the more the merrier I always say.

            I also changed the title to a more general one for new folks to Linux to find more easily.

            Thanks
            woodsmoke
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              #7
              Re: .deb vs rpm commentary

              Dependency hell worked this way ....

              You read about a nifty package, A, so you go to RMP Bone and download it. You fired up KPackageKit and clicked the "test install" button to see if you got something other than "Result=0", which meant a successful install (MOST of the time, but not always). If Result=0 you unchecked the "Test Install" and clicked the "Install". 99.991% of the time you got a good, Result=0, install.

              But, suppose you got a message saying A depended on version 1.2.4 of B, another package or library. You go to RPM Bone and down load it. A test install says that it can't replace B-1.2.3 with B-1.2.4 because package C depends on B-1.2.3. You look to see if there is a version of C that can depend on B-1.2.4. Trying to install C-x.y.z you get the message that it depends on D. D, it turns out, depends on B-1.2.3. So, you are stuck. You can't install A because of cylic dependencies of dependencies.

              Another variation of that was when I was running Knoppix with KDE 3.1 (or whatever, my memory fails me as to the exact details). I saw this nifty app in the repository and select it for installation. I clicked apply and to my horror I saw a msg flash by saying that 300+ packages were going to be upgraded, just to run that package. I let it go and when it was done I had KDE 3.2 plus that new application. "Wow", I thought, "that was neat!". Everything worked. A week or so later I saw another app. I clicked on it and a msg flashed by saying that 300+ packages were going to be replaced. "Oh hum", I thought. When the changes were made I was presented with a mess. Nothing worked. Everything crashed and often killed the xserver as well. From then on I carefully read all the pre-installation messages to be sure that ONLY the changes I wanted were going to be made. I NEVER let an application installation change the DE version. BUT, that can't happen with Kubuntu unless you deliberately change the repositories and execute specific commands.
              "A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”
              – John F. Kennedy, February 26, 1962.
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                #8
                Re: .deb vs rpm commentary

                lol I had that "300 packages flashed by me" and ruined a distro also! lol!
                woodsmoke
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