RedHat, Fedora future?

Jeff Vian jvian10 at charter.net
Thu Feb 5 23:59:33 UTC 2004


M.Hockings wrote:

> Bryan Encina wrote:
>
>>> Personally I find this all very interesting as before reading this
>>> thread I didn't even know that there was a spec about where to put
>>> things!  Here are a few randomish thoughts.
>>>
>>> On Windows you will see the  typical installer ask to put a new program
>>> at "C:\Program Files\some-vendor-name" but you can change this to
>>> "e:\where-ever-ya-want" and the program will still install.  However it
>>> now won't match the documentation -- does this confuse users too?  
>>> (ans:
>>> yes, even though they chose to put it there)
>>>   
>>
>>
>> I don't claim to be an expert on this (or anything at all), but isn't 
>> the
>> reason that Windows can get away with doing this and still having
>> plugins/addons install correctly because of the registry, one central 
>> place
>> where system wide settings can be looked up?  AFAIK there isn't anything
>> like that in linux (not saying there should be, either) so that's 
>> possibly
>> why installing into non-standard places can make installing/upgrading 
>> addons
>> a little harder.
>>
>
> Yes, this is true, but I have also had to help resolve problems with 
> customers where the registry was corrupt or out of sync due to system 
> failure, user editing,  deletion of files without uninstall, etc.  
> Thousands of entries if you use an msi installer.   There is a lot to 
> be said for a *simple* ordered way of putting things in the file 
> system (IMHO).  That is, I would presume that if a vendor supplies an 
> RPM install then the same vendor should know how to update or remove 
> the install as well.
>
FYI,  
RPM does provide the uninstall option.  read the man page. ( rpm -e 
<package> )
Also, for a user compiled/installed package the Makefile contains the 
uninstall option normally.
Install/uninstall paths are included in the rpm spec file and in the 
Makefile.  
Once the package has been installed the rpm database contains the 
information needed to uninstall it (and manual deletion of files does 
not 'break' the uninstall process).
 
The thing I hate about packages on (that other OS) is that if 
files/directories are deleted and the registry entries remain you 
usually CANNOT use the 'add/remove programs' control panel to clean up 
the registry.






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