[PLUG] Re: What Does "Install" Really Mean

[Tom Diehl <tdiehl@rogueind.com>]

On Mon, 1 Dec 2003, Kevin Brosius wrote:

> Tom D wrote:
> > 
> >  On Mon, 1 Dec 2003, Paul wrote:
> > 
> >  > Rebecca Ore wrote:
> >  > 
> >  > >On Sun, Nov 30, 2003 at 06:14:01PM -0500, Paul (emailme@dpagin.net) wrote:
> >  > > 
> >  > >
> >  > >>Like I said, sometime RPM gets confused. By forcing a package to be 
> >  > >>installed with --nodeps then removing the package, sometimes that 
> >  > >>resolves the problem and allows the package to be installed the usual 
> >  > >>way. I should have added that to my last message.
> >  > >> 
> >  > >>
> >  > >
> >  > >Using the replace package option seems to be a perhaps safer way to do
> >  > >this when rpm's database is confused. Also, rebuilding the database
> >  > >isn't a bad idea either.
> > 
> >  How does rpm's database get "confused"?? What does this mean and how would
> >  --replacepkg help a "confused" db?? On certain older versions of rpm there
> >  was/is a file locking bug that required the removal of the lock files and 
> >  rebuilding of the database. Is that what you are referring to?? If so I
> >  would suggest upgrading to the latest version of rpm for the applicable
> >  system. Look on rpm.org for the latest version. Red Hat never did an official
> >  update but JBJ put the updates on rpm.org for those who wanted to actually
> >  fix the problem.
> 
> In my observation, people either forget or haven't been told that RPM's
> really are distro specific.  If your particular distro is good at
> dependency setup, then you have a good chance of keeping your RPM
> database consistent.  As soon as you download an RPM that doesn't
> specify what distro and version it was built for (SuSE 9.0, SuSE 8.2, RH
> 7.3, etc) you are out of luck.  That's when people start suggesting the
> -force and -nodeps options.
> 
> I don't think RPM is confused, as much as people don't realize they
> should stick to RPM's built for their distro and version.

Agreed!! It would be nice to be able to make this stuff "idiot proof"
but alas it is impossible because the idiots are too smart. :-))

Part of the problem is a maintainers problem also. The programmers/maintainers
do not wish to maintain 42,000 different RPM's to cover all of the available
distros. So they do stupid things like the previous shorewall example when
in fact it is possible with a little work to make RPM's work on different
distros. You most likely need to build them on the target platform but if you are
not at least testing on the target platform then how do you know it works
in the first place. Even if a developer does not have the hdwe generally the users
can/will do the testing as long as the package is interesting enough. :-)

A really good example of good cross distro rpms are Simon Mudd's postfix rpms.
They build on a whole mess of rpm based distros. I would guess that if it is
newer than Red Hat 5.x and rpm based you can build for it and you do not have
to use --nodeps or --force.

.......Tom
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