[TAG] (admin) Status

[Jimmy O'Regan]

Thomas Adam wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 03, 2004 at 09:20:56PM +0100, Jimmy O'Regan wrote:
> 
> 
>>If it doesn't cause Heather and Thomas too much pain, suffering, and 
>>tearing out of hair, I have some comments to make about a few quotes:
> 
> 
> Sorry matey, but this'll have to be deferred until next month - I've just too
> much on right now to worry about it. I'll add my fleeting comments to this
> now though.
No problem.
>  
> 
>>"But some sort of automation is desperately needed here."
>>
>>This automation is available; Thomas told him about it. It's available 
>>in just about every distribution under the sun. Debian, IMO, does the 
>>best job of any distribution I've seen when it comes to this; apt (which 
>>determines and resolves dependancies) and debconf (which configures the 
>>software) are wonderful tools.
> 
> 
> debconf is not standard to all packages. It is used only where the maintainer
> of the package feels that certain questions asked can benefit the automation
> of config files for the said package being installed. What actually
> configures the package are the {pre,post,conf}scripts. These are always
> provided as part of the package system.
I should have said "which provides a way to get configuration details 
from the user".
> 
> 
>>Other than that, apt is available for RPM based distributions, Mandrake 
>>has rpmdrake, Fedora Core has yum, Ximian have Red Carpet (though that 
>>only really installs GNOME right now, but it should be better integrated 
>>into SuSE RSN, now that both companies are owned by Novell), as Thomas 
>>noted, SuSE has YOU, and according to what I've read, Gentoo's Portage 
>>system does this too.
> 
> 
> These are all front-ends, but what underlies them in all cases here (besides
> Gentoo) is the raw RPM command. No matter what you do to escape it; it is this
> command alone that is being manipulated. No matter how much gloss you put over
> it in terms of a front-end.
Yes, but they all (at least, those I'm familiar with) provide a way to 
resolve and fetch dependancies, which rpm (or dpkg) doesn't do by itself.