[wplug] Package Management

[Zach Paine]

Watch out, this can be a hot topic.  I used Mandrake (an RPM based
distro) and RedHat for a while in the past, and have settled on Debian
and its dpkg/apt/deb system.  I can't speak much for the development
side, but I love as an end user being able to say:

apt-get install gaim

and having the system figure out all of the required dependancies,
downloading the packages, and installing them.  It is very convenient. 
It also has a nice system for building packages from source, if that is
how you swing.  You can similarly say:

apt-get source gaim

and debian will grab the source packages for gaim and its dependancies. 
As far as RedHat, it never seemed quite intuitive to me.  There is no
real centralized location to get packages.  Debian package maintainers
track and package almost any software you can think of.  Red Hat
provides a more limited set it seems.  However, most software developers
will provide RPMs for their software if Red Hat doesn't, but most don't
provide debs.

Hope some of this is helpful.
Zach