RPM: I'm open to the possibility that it might not suck
Is there any excuse left at all for RPM's existence?
No, I'm not asking that snidely -- well, not entirely. My question is this: in a world where programmatically handling complex package dependencies, and doing it correctly in every case which doesn't involve some pathological combination of unlikelihoods, why would anyone, much less a well-known Linux distributor such as Red Hat, persist in using a packaging system which forces me to resolve dependencies by hand?
And if there's some solution to this problem, such as
So, I'm asking: If there's some kind of magic way of making RPM easy to deal with, what is it? I'm missing it, and I don't care how much derision you feel like heaping on me if, in the process of so doing, you also give me enough information to make RPM something other than an almost useless, actively frustrating pain in the ass.
And, if there is no such magic method, what the hell is anybody still doing using RPM, and why is Red Hat even still in business?
Thanks!
[ETA:
No, I'm not asking that snidely -- well, not entirely. My question is this: in a world where programmatically handling complex package dependencies, and doing it correctly in every case which doesn't involve some pathological combination of unlikelihoods, why would anyone, much less a well-known Linux distributor such as Red Hat, persist in using a packaging system which forces me to resolve dependencies by hand?
And if there's some solution to this problem, such as
yum, then why doesn't it come pre-installed anywhere RPM does? Such as these RHEL4 boxes I'm currently dealing with -- I could install yum, but first I'd have to hand-solve all the dependencies for it, which would entail replacing Python 2.3 with Python 2.4, which rapidly devolves into a nightmare when you're doing it all by hand -- consider all the packages depending on Python 2.3; consider all the packages on which Python 2.4 depends.So, I'm asking: If there's some kind of magic way of making RPM easy to deal with, what is it? I'm missing it, and I don't care how much derision you feel like heaping on me if, in the process of so doing, you also give me enough information to make RPM something other than an almost useless, actively frustrating pain in the ass.
And, if there is no such magic method, what the hell is anybody still doing using RPM, and why is Red Hat even still in business?
Thanks!
[ETA:
up2date does what I wanted. Would've been nice if the manual said so, but I guess that's asking too much. Thanks!] 