Re: [HACKERS] rpms

Thomas Lockhart wrote:
> Anyway, afaik most RPM distros of a product have one .rpm file which
> has the name of the package, and then may have other .rpm files which
> have qualifiers, like "-server". So in choosing which .rpm file will
> be the base package, it seemed most appropriate that it be the
> client-side stuff, as opposed to docs, or server (which btw can't
> really be run on its own without the client stuff installed
> *somewhere*), or something else.

> I appreciate your points, but it isn't clear to me how to eliminate
> *all* possibilities for confusion via RPM package names, so chose to
> use names which give some appropriate functionality for each package.

Thanks for fielding this, Thomas. While it is certainly possible to
have a set of subpackages without a 'main' package (the Amanda network
backup package comes to mind), I personally agree with you. Besides,
the comments for the postgresql-x.x.x-x.i386.rpm package states that it
contains only the clients and docs -- or at least I think it does :-).

And there will always be confusion with as many packages as we have.
The only alternative that I see is to integrate all the packages into
one -- and that is by far a worse solution, as it requires way too many
packages installed -- it should not be necessary to have X installed to
run a postgresql server, for instance -- only the tk client and pgaccess
require X.

--
Lamar Owen
WGCR Internet Radio
1 Peter 4:11