redhat abe

[Panu Matilainen]

On Fri, 28 Jan 2005, Axel Thimm wrote:
>> The new repodata is something that would be sanely implementable
>> into apt,
>
> I think that's the least that needs to be done. As you say it is
> easily fixable, and also until then it can be taken care of

I wouldn't say "easily", but it does fit into apt's design.

> server-side (where the question arises, what does the new repodata
> format really buy us other than being xml? I was under the impression
> that all depsolvers, rpm and deb and its cat were going to use it,
> turns out it's yum and up2date only).

..and so does smartpm, dunno about red-carpet and all the gazillion other 
depsolvers out there.

>
>> multilib as used in FC and RHEL (namely packages with same nevr but
>> different arch simultaenously installed) is something that doesn't
>> fit nicely into it's design. And that's putting it somewhat
>> mildly. I've actually tried various approaches to adding multilib
>> support to apt with varying success, however none of work well
>> enough to be actually usable.
>
> There is a simple patch by the CERN folks used for ia64 by spliting
> apt's processing of i386 and ia64 into different package worlds (in
> apt-rpm's archives). Can that be used as for an initial multilib
> approach?

Ugh, no thanks. Feel free to patch your version of apt with it, but from 
my POV it's just too ugly to live with.

>
> apt's lack of multilib is a PITA, but you must also consider that
> apt's development community has only one member coming from the
> multilib world, the masochist sharing Panu's mail address ... ;)

...and even I'm not really from "multilib world" since I don't have x86_64 
boxes at home. My next system is going to be that but whether it happens 
this year, next year or the one after that I dunno :)

 	- Panu -