Re: [cobalt-users] Re: RaQ 4 PKG "howto"

[Dmitry Alexeyev <dmi_a@xxxxxxxxxx>]

> > Sun's pkg approach to linux is evil! You will end up with bunch of
> > [stupid] unresolved dependencies and totally incompatable 3-rd
> > party software.
>
> Why is that a PKG specific problem?

1) it doesn't keep track of RPM dependencies, cause every PKG script 
makes -Uvh --nodeps; I had 10 dependcy errors on my systems after 
updating. Very stupid ones, like cpio depends on /sbin/rmt, which 
doesn't even exists for linux

2) if there is a problem with a PKG, you won't know about what have 
failed, the best you can get is a error message: "there was a problem 
installing RPM blah-blah-blah"

3) patching from PKG is good, but try find / -name *.rej after applying 
Sun's patches; you'll find about 5 (best case!) rejected patches

4) uninstalling PKG is pain, if something in the scripts is broken

5) imaging a complicated PKG from 3-rd party, with many libraries to 
satisfy its needs. Simple example would be libpng, libbjpeg, openssl.
when you try to install it, you see, that there's and old libpng, old 
libjpeg and old openssl on the server. libpng has changed major .so 
number, libjpeg has libjpeg62 in the name and openssl has changed the 
major number and is put to /lib -- arrgh!!! Now you must resolve all 
the dependecies you have, which isn't simple, cause it is set up with 
--nodeps, and you can't say what will broke when you'll remove this 
rpm. Imaging uninstalling of this rpm too... 

You just install PKG blindly in hope it is packaged well... When 
sometimes it doesn't. 

>
> > Using RPM packages is the right path, that's Linux after all, time
> > to stop clicking the mouse.
>
> Well, any sort of package handler is good; RPM has its strong and
> weak points, just like .deb, etc.

Keep in mind, that you use RPM as underlying layer with PKG, but you do 
not use it's strong points (seriously speaking, rpm sucks, and only 
versions > 4.2.0 are worth something. nothing is better that FreeBSD 
ports[just kidding]) 
RPM was designed to keep the overall system's integrity; like 
configuration files, dependecies... 
It's useless with PKG, you just use RPM as a simple tarball... so why? 

>
> > RPM is designed to check versions, architectures, dependencies. Why
> > putting them into stupid tarballs, arm with stupid scripts with
> > --nodeps/--noscripts/--force?
>
> To make it easier for non-admins to install upgrades without having
> to know how to work a shell, etc.

Not a good approach generally. Very far from UNIX idea :| 
Look, it's not that hard to learn working with RPMs/shell, it's one 
small book. 
And you just do not have pain with those pkg updates. 

When I see Sun's update page, I wanna scream! Four kernel packages, and 
how many people do know you need JUST one?!!

>
> You don't have to put RPMS in a PKG, you can have it just contain a
> shell script or a tarball of content (maybe web pages or something).
> Then you can roll out the "update" to all your servers automatically
> via Control Station, etc., and be sure that the command will be
> executed as you want, and have a record in the UI that the PKG was
> installed/run/whatever.  Or have a less-skilled admin do the
> point-click via the UI and manually upgrade boxes one at a time.

Good. But I have another approach in mind, and it will be ready for 
testing next week. The one which won't hurt less-skilled amdins and 
won't break RPM idea. 

>
> If you don't like it the PKG mechanism, don't use it.

Exactly. I don't like it anymore. I made some 10 packages and stopped; 
they just can't co-exist with someone another's packages, so I have to 
rebuild all their packages.  Thanks, I'd better spend my time on 
something useful

Best Regards,
Dmitry