[lug] a bit tired of updates

Bob C. Ruddy ruddy at udlug.org
Wed Oct 27 08:41:16 MDT 1999


Anyone who is tired of upgrading an rpm system should try debian and the
apt tool. First the debian package format contains much more information
about the packages it depends on. Second there is a package tool called
apt. This tool is a front end to the debian package tool. There is a
config file for apt inside the config file you give apt a list of urls
were it can find the debian packages you want. For example you can say use
ftp.debian.org. Then you run 'apt-get update' that updates apt's list of
available packages. After that you run 'apt-get upgrade' that will
download all the updates for your system and install them. Just two
commands and you system is updated. If you want to install another
program, say xemacs. 'apt-get install xemacs' will get xemacs find the
dependacies, download them, and install them as well. You'd think I was a
sales person or somthing? :-)

			Bob


On Wed, 27 Oct 1999, Rob Riggs wrote:

->Chan Kar Heng wrote:
->... 
->> so .rpm it is. but do you often find out about a new app
->> or a new version of a favourite app and proceed to download
->> the rpm, only to find that you need an rpm of a (set) of
->> libraries which need to be upgraded as well.
->...
->> so does anyone have a certain recipe for overcoming this
->> rather irritating thing? (though it only happens once in
->> a month or few)
->
->99% of the time you can overcome this by grabbing the SRPM
->and rebuilding the RPM from source. The RPM only requires
->the newer libraries because that is what it was compiled
->against.
->
->However, there are times when you will realize that it is
->just easier to upgrade your distribution to the latest
->release. I finally upgraded to Red Hat 6.0 recently,
->because that is what most of the Gnome developers were
->using. It got to the point that upgrading the OS was easier
->than trying to keep up upgrading libraries everytimg I
->wanted to try out a new application.
->
->-- 
->Rob Riggs
->Technical Staff
->Tummy.com, Ltd.
->http://www.tummy.com/
->
->_______________________________________________
->Web Page:  http://lug.boulder.co.us
->Mailing List: http://lists.lug.boulder.co.us/mailman/listinfo/lug
->





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