Byron wrote regarding 'Re: [OT] Ubuntu 5.04->5.10 upgrade problem' on Tue, Dec 20 at 11:02:
> On Sat, Dec 17, 2005 at 09:35:58AM -0600, Danny Sauer wrote:
> > Byron wrote regarding 'Re: [OT] Ubuntu 5.04->5.10 upgrade problem' on Sat, Dec 17 at 07:12:
> > > The problem with Slackware is that managing any software that isn't
> > > a Slackware package isn't easy.
> 
> I'm aware of both. However it's the dependancy issue that's tough to
> manage. rpm and apt are great at fulfilling dependancies.

RPM is good at warning you about dependencies, but does nothing to
fulfill deps.  That's something I really dislike about RPM - the lack
of network repository support and automatic dependency resolution.
Sure, there are wrappers like yum, and tools like up2date and yast,
but rpm doesn't inherently do anything more than catalog what's
installed and look at a list of things to do in a .spec file.  RPMs
can run scripts at a few more points than .pkg files (which only have
post install scripts), but using pkgtool you still get a list of
packages on the system in /var/log/packages.  I don't find myself
installing a lot of software for which I don't know the dependencies,
but that's just me.

Either way, I've found the dependency *tracking* of both to be their
biggest advantage over .pkg as well as their biggest drawback (more so
with RPM than with apt or portage).  I've had far fewer problems with
./configure determining what's installed than I have had with any
package manager. :)

I should qualify this by noting that I tend to run pretty static
systems, and don't remove things often.  Somone who's constantly
trying to stay on the bleeding edge or often installs and then removes
packages may benefit more from a different package manager (like
portage or apt - rpm isn't very good at cleaning up after removals).
Then again, someone with needs like that probably woulnd't be on Slack
anyway. ;)

--Danny
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