RPM's or source? (was: Can I upgrade with RPMs?)

[Graham Leggett]

Shawn Coomey wrote:

> On my system, I have MANY pieces of software installed that I compiled 
> from source (not RPM'd or apt-get'ted). I know many folks, especially in 
> the YDL world do the same thing due to the relative dirth of PPC RPM's 
> out there. Back a few months ago, I wanted to upgrade to 2.2, so I 
> basically wiped the drives and started fresh. That was OK for then, as I 
> didn't have much necessary data to save. What if I had tons of critical 
> data and a clean wipe and install wasn't an option?

If you cannot separate out your critical data from your OS then you have 
a far larger problem. It pays to be tidy.

> Philosophically speaking and from an OS upgrade standpoint, is the use 
> of RPM's an all-or-nothing prospect?

RPMs are there to solve a number of problems:

- Dependancy tracking. Yes dependancies are a pain, but far less of a 
pain than trying to work out why half your software is broken after 
installing or uninstalling something.

- Package removal. If you uninstall an RPM it is gone (apart from data 
and config files that were changed). You don't have the problem of many 
different libraries installed all over the show, and you pulling your 
hair out figuring out why the wrong library is being used.

  for Redhat should work for YDL.If PPC RPMs are not available, simply 
download the RPM source and say "rpm --rebuild package.src.rpm". In the 
majority of cases any source RPM  Here you get the benefits of 
installing from source, with the management features of RPM.

Regards,
Graham
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