Re: Base distro + Requirements definition

[Bruce Robert Pocock <brpocock 10east com>]

On Sun, 2002-06-23 at 20:35, Mikael Hallendal wrote:
> A little table (probably missed some points):
> 
>                                 Debian     Gentoo/Bagheera      Red Hat
> Exists                            Y           Y  /   N             Y
> Actively developed                Y              Y                 Y
> Easy to give back                 ?           ?  /   Y             N
	  						        (but not
								impossible)
> Infrastructure in place           Y           Y      -             Y
> Installation process we can use   N              N                 Y
> Easily worked package format      N              Y                 ?
                                                                    Yes
> Good API against package system   N           N      Y             ?
                                                                Yes (C,
                                                           Perl, Python)
> Fulfills our requirements         [snip:matter of opinion at this point]

Some questions, as I'm a long-time RPM user and don't know how
"practical" some things are in Deb/Gen/Bag packages:

Features of RPM: do Debian, Gentoo/Bagheera have:

(1) GPG signature verification for packages?

(2) Ability to verify state of installed package?
  i.e. check MD5sums & permissions of all package-owned files,
   and ability to tell which of them are (config|var) files and 'should'
   change under normal usage.

(3) Ability to identify documentation for a package?
  (this goes back to a RFE I have out on scrollkeeper, for users to say
"tell me who owns this window, hunt down its executable, and then show
me all the associated documentation" - "Click on any window to find help
on that program" - analogous to "rpm -qldf /usr/bin/whatever")

(4) Packages can indicate prerequisites, conflicts, and "obsoletes"
(e.g. "gnome-vfs-smb version 2.5 obsoletes gnome-vfs-extras versions <
1.2" or similar)

(5) Packages can be rebuilt from source without user interaction? 

 -> Thus, we can e.g. ship software that's "illegal to distribute in
binary form" as .src.rpm's and silently do a "rpm --rebuild $pkg" in the
background to install them...

"Please wait... this software is being custom-built for your
enjoyment... [Details >]"
"The software you have chosen to install must be custom-built for your
computer. Your computer is performing this task right now."

 It's my understanding Gentoo is designed around this feature, but does
it require user interaction to operate, or can it "chug" in a tty-free
subshell somewhere? My last Debian experience had a problem here - some
pkgs required user interaction just to install binaries - is this normal
still?

--> Regardless, is it agreed that we should ship "alien" or an
equivalent utility? ("The software you have chosen to install was
designed for: Slackware Would you like to adapt it for use on your
computer? [Adapt It] [Cancel]")
	
> 
> 
> _But_ as I said in a previous mail. It would be _much_ easier to take
> the right decision about which distribution to use for base _after_ we
> have the requirements in place. Then we would have a better knowledge
> how much of the current choices we could use without changing in any
> way.

Agreed!