Sorry, couldn't resist !
There was a long thread on debian-user there about a year ago on this
topic, RedHat were actually going to move to .deb format at one stage,
because the Debian package format provides a lot of the info ppl were
looking for, it also provides better dependancy information etc. The idea
was scrapped because .deb wasn't finidhed in time for RH to release their
new version (4.0 iirc). As it turns out .deb (and relations) are better
package formats (and debian can also install .rpm archives using alien).
It's a betamax v's VHS all over again. RH is popular, so .rpm is becoming
the de-facto standard for packages.
Anyway, most debian users can happily install *any* rpm / deb / tgz or
otherwise package simply by using alien to convert it to a .deb first, OK so
it'll be missing some of the dependency info, but that's not all that big a
deal. (All they need is a proper replacement for the install sequence and an
*easy, not necessarily powerful* graphical package installer and they're
away. dselect is great (when you know what you're doing) but *VERY* daunting
for beginners !
Proinnsias
> -----Original Message-----
> topic) it would be nice if the debian packaging folks just gave up
> on .deb and moved over to get rpm improved. oops, sorry, flamebait.
>
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