Re: Simplifying package installation.

[Adrian Hosey <ahosey snowcrash kiva net>]

On Fri, 27 Aug 1999, Jeffrey W. Bizzaro wrote:
: 
: > Yes, a personal system for installing packages would be good, but then
: > again, rpm is only available on some systems.
: 
: I would bet RPM is easier to port to various UNIXes than GNOME is ;-)

RPM only performs optimally if the entire system is checked into the RPM
database. The database needs to know about  everything on the system so it
can get the dependencies right.

The much talked about "meta-installer" seems like the better way, except
Havoc asserts it can't be done correctly: "...the problem it tries to
solve is computationally intractable and requires human judgment." (he was
referring to Alien specfically here.)

	- A