[UCLA-LUG] Upgrading questions . . .

[Mark James Fasheh]

On Wed, May 17, 2000 at 07:21:34PM -0700, Todd A. Lyons wrote:
> Mark James Fasheh wrote:
> 
> > If you do that, then you don't need to run the installer.  Simply download
> > the RPMS and install.  There is nothing preventing you from doing that.
> 
> Since I haven't actually tried Helix yet, it seems that we're talking
> apples and oranges.  Your comment implies that the "installer" is not
> "rpm -ivvh helix*".  Correct?
The installer is a seperate program which runs and downloads the necessary
packages for you, it will also notify you of updates and download them if
you ask it to.  It is all transparent, and fits right into the computers
package manager.  Otherwise, one can manually download the RPMS for their
distro, and install the stuff.

> 
> > to run something like slackware, which will not get in your way.  Package
> > management is in place for a good reason.  When you bypass it, you lose many
> > of it's benefits.
> 
> And a ./configure script can do it all as well, albeit at a slower
> pace.  I don't like the notion of precompiled binaries.  Windows proved
> that to me.  And it seems like I get the same series of problems with
> precompiled binaries in Linux as I did in Windows.
Yeah, agreed, but that's why I recommended you check out slack.  It won't
get in the way of you doing these sorts of things.  I would think that
package management is of no use to you, so why not get rid of it, and save
yourself the space (and gain some configurability as well).  

> I know that there are benefits for a package based system, but mostly
> for the newbies.  I guess I'll sum it up by saying that I'm somewhat of
> a control freak when it comes to my system.  RPM's don't offer me the
> level of control that I want.  As always, this is America and everybody
> has the right to disagree with me, but nobody will be able to prove me
> wrong (in my eyes).

I disagree :)
seriously though, the point I'm trying to illustrate is that you can be just
as much of a control freak with a package management system.  RPM's offer
you just as much control, you just have to learn to make your own packages. 
What RPM adds however, is an efficient way to keep track of what you have on
your system, and where you installed it, etc.  It will also give you an
automated uninstall (which again, you can configure).  One of the problems I ran
into when doing the whole tarball thing, was that I never could remember
just what stuff I had on my system, what versions of it, where it was
installed (including what files had been installed), and which files
belonged to which packages.  RPM helped solve this by keeping a database of
what I had installed, and where, etc.  Once again, all of this is completely
configurable (assuming you compile and create your own packages).

At any rate, tarballs are fine, but what I'm trying to illustrate is that
RPM is just as configurable, and it will actually automate some of what you
want it to.
	--Mark

--------------
If we were meant to get up early, God would have created us with alarm clocks.

President, UCLA LUG
Mark James Fasheh <mfasheh@linux.ucla.edu>
http://www.exothermic.org