[wplug] apt and rpm/up2date

bgtrio at yahoo.com bgtrio at yahoo.com
Fri Feb 7 11:22:54 EST 2003


The up2date service works pretty well, but as has been pointed out here, 
it really just updates the rpms that you've got installed, and more 
specifically, the rpms that are a part of the official distribution.

In contrast, Debian's apt system is an official network that includes tons 
of packages that are not part of the base system. 

For a trivial example, quake2 and angband (two of my favorite games) can 
be acquired and updated via apt-get through the debian non-free servers.  
There is no such facility for rpm, to my knowledge.

You can view all of the packages available via apt-get for debian unstable 
here:
http://packages.debian.org/unstable/allpackages.html

Warning, it's a very big page.  There are similar pages for testing and 
stable.

There are apt-rpm servers out there, but I fear to use them because they 
are not officially supported by redhat in any way, so I don't have the 
same confidence in their quality that I do with the debian packages.  
Perhaps others who have tried this will correct me, but it seems that the 
selection of software one can obtain with apt-rpm is very limited compared 
with the apt-get network.

I would love to see a translation facility to convert .deb packages to the 
rpms one needs so that apt-rpm can simply be a wrapper to the ordinary 
.deb related apt-get, but I have neither the acumen, time, nor funds to 
accomplish such a feat.  Perhaps as the Linux Standards Base evolves this 
will become possible.

Apt-get seems to solve a more general problem than up2date, and apt-rpm 
doesn't seem to be "there" yet.  If I'm wrong I would be in the debt of 
whoever exposes my error.

Bryon







More information about the wplug mailing list