[MeeGo-dev] On deb vs rpm

[Raphael Hertzog]

Hi,

thanks for your answer David.

On Tue, 16 Feb 2010, David Greaves wrote:
> At the very least I'd like to identify what dpkg etc provides that is
> missing in rpm. Satisfying those requirements would be another solution.

It's not necessarily "missing", it's just that the tools take different
approaches and that in my experience the choices made in dpkg have
given better result:
- the text database
  - better reliability (against some loss of performance)
  - easier to fix when stuff breaks (and easier to tweak for tests)
- the dependencies on packages (vs possibility to depend on a file)
  create less problems and the automatic deps in Debian work well
- the triggers offer convenient solution to automatic registration
  of many installed stuff (without needing postinst snippets)
- apt-get and family are still better than yum and other alternatives in
  the RPM world

Also it's not only about the binary files but also about source packages.
I find the Debian approach superior even if it needs some more learning
to build a good Debian package.

BTW, I would love to have a (new) packaging format shared by all major
Linux distributions but I don't see how I could ever push this forward.

See my comment in
http://stick.gk2.sk/blog/2009/10/rpm-summit-at-the-opensuse-conference-2009/
for some of the missing features that dpkg already has and that are
considered for RPM.

> > As far as I understand it, the decision was not to take RPM because of
> > > RPM alone but as part of the build infrastructure that Moblin is
> > > contributing to MeeGo.
> This sounds like a myth.. see below

If it's a myth, what is the real reason then?

If it's political, I shall simply vanish in the dark.

But if it's more a question of convenience because of some existing
infrastructure, then we can discuss replacing this infrastructure if it
means we get something technically superior in the end. In that case, I
shall stick around and see if I can help.

[ Skip OBS presentation ]

> > Could the project change its mind if we contribute something equivalent
> > for the DEB world?
> So this is not needed - in fact a greater service would be for Debian to
> adopt the OBS approach as a true cross-distro build system. Would you
> please give this some serious consideration. IMHO it's the most likely
> way to resolve these issues.

What issue would it resolve?

I fail to see what you are proposing. Do you mean the project should
provide spec file and debian dirs in all modules and have OBS build
both variants? And have 2 variants of the end-user package installation
program available (and we pick the right one depending on the type of
system built)?

> I'm lbt on freenode #meego / #mer or email me privately too.

I'm buxy on Freenode / OFTC.

Cheers,
-- 
Raphaël Hertzog