When it comes to packaging Linux software, most commercial distributions today rely fairly heavily on the Red Hat Package Manager, or RPM.
These pre-compiled binaries simplify the process of installing new software. Instead of having to configure, compile and install code, users can simply do an "rpm -i package name" and the process takes care of itself. In theory, and often in practice, the RPM format makes for an elegant and simple solution, when it works, which it very often doesn`t.
If Linux hopes to win converts on the desktop, it needs to become as easy to use as its competitors.
Alastair Otter, Journalist, ITWeb
Among the many failings of the RPM format is its inability to resolve dependencies. Dependencies are the other pieces of code on which any single application rests. Without the required libraries or toolkits, new software is all but useless. And as most Linux users will tell you, resolving dependencies can be the most trying and time-consuming aspect of using Linux.
While there are a number of front-end applications such as KPackage, YaST and DrakeRpm, which take some of the work out of resolving dependencies, these are often inadequate when it comes to locating software not included on distribution disks. So if the required code is housed on the Internet, the search can be a time-consuming and often fruitless one.
Overlooked
There is, however, an excellent tool in the Debian stable that unfortunately seems to have been largely overlooked by the major distributors of Linux: apt-get. Apt is essentially a meta layer tool that resolves and locates dependencies, easing the entire process of upgrading a Linux box. The problem is that apt-get is a Debian-specific tool and, until now, has only worked with .deb files, the Debian packaging schema.
Sometime last year, however, Connectiva Linux released the latest version of its Linux distribution. While not particularly notable in Linux circles, there was one aspect that stood out: Connectiva had re-worked apt-get to work with RPMs. Essentially, apt did all the hard work of resolving and locating all the dependencies while RPM took care of the installation. A simple but effective solution that could go a long way to making Linux as easy to use as other systems such as Windows.
Apt may well be just one of the possible solutions to the problems inherent in keeping a Linux box up to date but it could well be the one that will make the biggest difference. Despite its benefits, however, apt may well get overlooked in the future as well, particularly considering that the Linux standards project will most likely adopt RPM as the packaging method of choice and further sidelining apt.
It is hard to argue against the Linux standards project because more than anything at this point Linux needs established guidelines, but the hope is that whatever format is settled on it will be chosen for its relative merits and not because of the weight of the commercial distributors.
After all, if Linux hopes to win converts on the desktop, it needs to become as easy to use as its competitors. Very few newly converted users are going to enjoy having to trawl the Internet for an ever-growing list of applications every time they decide to update their machine.
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