Mail Archives: cygwin/2005/02/15/19:56:09
At 07:36 PM 2/15/2005, you wrote:
>I can imagine during the early development of cygwin, the rpm
>package types were rather "unsupportable" -- especially on a
>"first install", since no unix shell or coreutils are available.
>
>However, after the basic support is installed, what was the reasoning
>for keeping packages in YAPM (YetAnotherPackageManager).
>
>It seems even a bit more surprising considering Cygwin's early
>roots coming from a RedHat...
>
>Why is the current setup.exe "format" still the preferred format?
>Would it be beneficial to start having the packages moved toward
>rpm format? It would be useful, at times, to do the equivalent
>of an "rpm -qf <filelist>", or "rpm -qi" for info, etc...Yes,
>one can continue to reinvent the wheel by writing utils that parse
>file lists in /etc/setup, but it seems that would be 'reinventing'
>the wheel for no great purpose...
>
>So I guess I'm curious why Cygwin uses YAPM since RPM has been
>ported? I'm not looking for any religious debates -- just
>technical/engineering reasons why a different package. I'm not
>"sold" on the rpm package manager, just wondering why the need
>for creating another format?
>It's weird -- I tried installing an RPM, and among files that
>were listed as 'missing' were /bin/rm, /bin/sh, /usr/bin/perl
>and libc -- I can see RPM not knowing about the libc package
>name, but the filenames? I know they're installed, so what's
>the scoop?
There's been plenty of discussion of this so if you're interested in the
details, see the email archives. In particular, take a look at a recent
thread (within the last couple of months) on the cygwin-apps list
discussing setup alternatives and RPM. I think that thread in particular
provides many of the answers you're looking for.
--
Larry Hall http://www.rfk.com
RFK Partners, Inc. (508) 893-9779 - RFK Office
838 Washington Street (508) 893-9889 - FAX
Holliston, MA 01746
--
Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple
Problem reports: http://cygwin.com/problems.html
Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html
FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/
- Raw text -