Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1752542AbZKDRZJ (ORCPT ); Wed, 4 Nov 2009 12:25:09 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1752564AbZKDRZF (ORCPT ); Wed, 4 Nov 2009 12:25:05 -0500 Received: from artax.karlin.mff.cuni.cz ([195.113.26.195]:34300 "EHLO artax.karlin.mff.cuni.cz" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1757448AbZKDRZD (ORCPT ); Wed, 4 Nov 2009 12:25:03 -0500 Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 18:25:07 +0100 (CET) From: Mikulas Patocka To: Alan Cox cc: "Ryan C. Gordon" , =?ISO-8859-14?B?TeVucyBSdWxs?= =?ISO-8859-14?B?Z+VyZA==?= , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: package managers [was: FatELF patches...] In-Reply-To: <20091104165407.1481bc29@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> Message-ID: References: <1257103201.2865.6.camel@chumley> <20091102000147.424f104b@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> <20091104165407.1481bc29@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> X-Personality-Disorder: Schizoid MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1505 Lines: 34 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 -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/