Linux usability [ was: RE: Changing IP Addresses]

[Brian Densmore]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jonathan Hale [mailto:maclaoch at earthlink.net]
>
> ... I believe the LSB has selected RPMs over 
> .debs... which
> I'm sure a lot of Debian people would disagree with... but, 
> as you say, RPMs
> are widely available... and Red Hat is still the market 
> leader... for now...
Yes, I think I'll have to include RPM in order to comply with the LSB. I
really don't like RPM because they have tendency to generate very
restrictive
depends. For example say you have an app that need glibfoo.8x.so and the
actual
version if glibfoo you have is glibfoo.8.2.1a.so. So you build an RPM
and the 
depend says "oh you need glibfoo.8.2.1a.so instead of glibfoo.8.so". Now
everyone
who wants to install your RPM has to have glibfoo.8.2.1a.so. I'm not
sure how
easy it is to create these more generic RPMs, I think I have seen them.
Besides,
I think the gentoo Portage is going to be more flexible. There may be a
way to 
reconcile this. It might be as simple (or as difficult) as building an
intelligent 
RPM installer, that creates the necessary links to appropriate requires
files. 

Brian