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Re: dpkg issues

On Thu, 20 Feb 1997, Bruce Perens wrote:

> We should be asking orselves if "dpkg" is Debian. We have a good
> distribution, and changing package managers will not change that.

No, of course dpkg is not Debian, in just the same way that the the site
manager is not an entire construction project. But dpkg is *central* to
what Debian is at the moment. We currently have over 1000 packages, all
using dpkg; even if dpkg and RPM have the same functionality---which they
don't---that's a massive job to change between them, even if we do have a
tool to automate it.

There are also other disadvantages. For example: how compatible do we
want to be with Red Hat? If we start using RPMs, as somebody else has
already pointed out, we have two options: either make our system totally
compatible with RH, so RPMs can be installed on either, or only allow the
installation of Debian-specific RPMs. The first option seems to me to
make us into a (probably rather poor) RH clone, and the second would be
more hassle than it was worth.

I understand that Debian's dependency system is more complex than RH's,
too, but it seems to be more complete, as well. I don't know much about
this, so I won't go on about it for too long, but I *like* the way
dependencies are done ATM. It might be nice if dselect was slightly more
intelligent about the way it handled them, but that's another debate. By
giving that up, we lose an incredible amount of flexibility.

> We will have to give up a few of our present goals - for example
> we should be distributing the system as a suite of packages that all
> work with each other and are upgraded all at once, rather than upgrading
> a piece here and a piece there while we cross our fingers and hope the
> dependencies are right.

This worries me. As I said, I don't know diddly squat about RH, but are
you really saying that it's impossible to upgrade a single RPM at a time?
And what about the problems we've been having with stable lately anyway?

> That's the main thing we sacrafice in giving
> up dpkg. However, we give up a lot of headaches at the same time.

Could you please make this clearer? Yes, our package building tools are
currently lagging behind the rest of the project, due to a whole load of
factors, but it is certainly not insoluble. Totally changing the
infrastructure is not the way to bring things up to date unless they are
irrevocably broken, which IMO they are a long way from.

What else? Package building is currently not the easiest thing in the
world, but again this is being worked on very hard at the moment. Yes, so
it might take a few months before we get any results, but this is again
not a fundamental problem with the current system, just a temporary
deficiency.

I want to make it clear that I am very much in favour of standardising
the package management tools between dpkg and RPM, and although this
would still have some of the disadvantages listed above (such as
interchangeability of packages) it should be possible to hammer out a set
of standards. (Is it possible to set up a dpkg-rpm-devel mailing list,
with subscribers from both ends, for example?) But this is not the way to
do it. Dpkg has, to my mind, many advantages over RPM, and we shouldn't
just give them up because it's easier that way.

I'll stop there, but can I just say: anybody who agrees with Bruce,
please speak up. Most of the posts I've seen so far have been against
this, but I remember the CD issue. If I'm out of order here, please tell
me. Although I do feel very strongly about this, I like to think that I'm
not /totally/ unreasonable.

Sincerely,

Andy Mortimer

--
Andy Mortimer, andy.mortimer@poboxes.com
http://www.netforward.com/poboxes/?andy.mortimer
Finger asm21@asm21.emma.cam.ac.uk for PGP public key
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It goes dark, it goes darker still; please stay.
But I watch like I'm made of stone, as you walk away.


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