Bombing of Dresden (was Plea for help: The detriment of using Microsoft products)

[ddm at mclinux.com (Derek Martin)]

On Wed, 17 May 2000, Mike Bilow wrote:

> There is really no point to installing Debian package management tools on
> Red Hat.  First, large sections of the filesystem, such as /usr/bin, are
> considered to be under the exclusive control of the package manager, and
> running two package managers on one system is going to cause collisions.  

Agreed; I never said it made sense, I only said you CAN do it...  :)

> Second, the Debian package management system provides for all sorts of
> capabilities that are not present on a Red Hat system, or which depend
> upon Debian Policy, such as automatic determination at upgrade of whether
> the user has edited a configuration file or is using the default installed
> with the package.  Third, since Debian handles automatic dependency
> resolution, what you would end up with if you run its tools on Red Hat is
> the package manager cascading an installation of Debian over Red Hat.

Yep, it's probably a superior package management system, and probably a
superior distribution overall, but Debian is a PIA to install, in my
experience. And the last "stable" release is ancient.  This is ok for
geeks who want to put it on thier desktop, but I need something that's
fast and easy to slap on a machine in an automated fasion.  RedHat is at
least the easy answer, if not the best one.

> If you want to install the occasional Debian package onto Red Hat, use the
> alien utility and fix up the damage manually.  If you find that you are
> constantly installing Debian packages onto Red Hat, then you need to ask
> yourself why you are not running Debian in the first place.  

I just answered that... ;)  Though personally I don't install .deb files
on RedHat.  Haven't found the need.

-- 
Derek Martin
System Administrator
Mission Critical Linux
martin at MissionCriticalLinux.com 

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