Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 4 Nov 2009 18:25:07 +0100 (CET) | From | Mikulas Patocka <> | Subject | Re: package managers [was: FatELF patches...] |
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On Wed, 4 Nov 2009, Alan Cox wrote:
> > - With Linux package managers, the user is stuck with the software and > > version shipped by the distribution. If he wants to install anything > > newer or older, it turns into black magic and the typical desktop user > > (non-hacker) can't do it. > > In the rpm/yumworld that would be "yum downgrade" and "yum upgrade" for > packages or whatever button on whatever gui wrapper you happen to have.
And what if there isn't a package? Upgrade option doesn't solve the need for [ distributions X software ] matrix of packages.
> And of course yum supports third party repositories so you can also deal > with the updating problem which Windows tends not to do well for third > party software.
A practical example --- when I wanted to get Wine on RHEL 5, all I found was a package for 1.0.1. Nothing newer.
I managed to compile the current version of Wine (it wasn't straghtforward and took few days to solve all the problems) and it ran the program I wanted. But I can imagine that a typical business user or home gamer will just say "that Linux sux".
You can say that I should delete RHEL-5 and install Fedora, but that is just that "upgrade one program" => "upgrade all programs" problem.
Mikulas
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