Ok, how bout SuSE 9.0?

[Fairlight]

The honourable and venerable Bill Vermillion spoke thus:
> Must have been someone else who mentioned my name :-)

Dunno.  Ears been burning?

> I keep hearing/reading of problems with libraries mis-matching, and
> having to DL something else, before you can install what you want.
> I've had that on the few Linux boxen I've used.

That's not the fault of RPM, that's the fault of package dependancies in
general.  Take anything that relies on OpenSSL for instance, and you work
up the chain of dependancies.  Yes, you have to satisfy the RPM's
dependancy list, but it has one to prevent you from doing something stupid
like putting in a library that won't have a symbol that something needs.

But you'd have to satisfy that dependancy with raw source packages as well.
And then there are conflicting dependancies as well.  For instance, I have
an older distribution on a private system that's firewalled so I can still
use it.  It's about equivalent to RH 7.0 or 7.1 probably.  Its web admin
interface depends on glib 1.2.7 from the vendor's dist.  I needed 1.2.10.
But 1.2.10 is missing a symbol that .7 had in it.  Yet I had independant
high-level applications that needed differing libraries.  That's not a
fault of RPM...the vendor released the .7 in RPM form but I was working
from pure source building gtk+ 1.2.10.

What -does- get me about RH in specific is if you want to replace,
say...perl.  They make that next to impossible to do.  I can put together
an RPM with the same configuration, but some of the dependancies between
what they had and what I needed to make the new one differed, and you
really don't want to remove perl on a RH system.  :)  So either you replace
it by overwriting the rpm's files (not my first choice), or you install a
secondary copy.

It's not the vendor's fault 90% of the time on the dependancies.  Other
times, they just pick combinations of odd versions and stick with older
ones instead of updating everything and its matching dependancies.

Some things are just picky, period.  I find it hard to believe nothing in
FBSD cares about what particular version of OpenSSL is around.  That has to
be one of the most notoriously maleable libraries of the last few years.

> > Yes, but OTOH, I -like- to install side-by-side versions of multiple
> > kernels and alter the bootloader so that I always have a failsafe.
> 
> We're not talking kernels here.  And anyone who has used Unix for
> any length of time always has at least ONE good kernel that is
> placed where a system upgrade or relink [in SCO parlance] will
> leave the good versions alone.  Anyone who hasn't learned that by
> now needs to have his root access privledges removed :-)

Yes, well...  YOU know that.  I know that.  Let's just say I know some
people that -do- need their root privileges removed.

> > Well if you don't see anything by Wednesday, post it.  I'm curious.
> 
> Ah - what the heck.  It's called Gentoo.  It seems to be getting
> more and more noise as it goes along, and a lot of that is because
> of 'portage'.

Ok.  I've heard of it before, but not regarding portage.  Another popular
one seems to be knoppix, and I have no idea why.  Can't remember.

> > Nothing of the sort. I'm just saying I wholly despise the
> > versioning that vendors are using for packages, and figured you
> > would probably drag yourself into it by citing that the beastie
> > world has no such issues,
> 
> Why should I insert BSD into a Linux discussion.  And when you
> say 'versioning used by vendors' you are talking about the way
> an OS vendor will diddle a version as opposed to an application
> vendor, correct?

Because BSD's ports system avoids the problem of mis-versioning altogether.

And yes, I'm talking about OS vendors doing something ridiculous like
Apache 1.3.24-27 really being about equivalent to the real McCoy's 1.3.27.

I wish they -would- use the application vendor's version numbers, so you
could more easily tell what exactly is present and problematic without a
paper chase.

> > I don't care -how- they do it.  Version things truthfully and I'll be 
> > happy.  :)
> 
> We'll see ;=)

IF it would ever happen we would.  :)  But you know me...I'm never
completely happy.  Such is my lot.  Well, I'm completely happy for small
intervals--until I find something to be displeased with.  *grin*

mark->
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