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

[R Shapiro]

Shawn Coomey writes:
 > 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. 

It's usually easy to find a working src rpm without all that much
effort.  And if you can't find one, that's your chance to contribute
back to the linux community: make one.

Personally I _never_ install compiled src tars directly.  I may
download sources and build them in my home directory.  But when it
comes time to install, I always either find or make an rpm.


 > 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?

Save it to cd-r and restore it after reinstalling.

Major upgrades are best done with a reinstall.  I know for sure this
is generally what happens in the RedHat community with new versions
(and ydl is, after all, ppc-redhat),


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

Two separate issues imo.  One issue is dealing with major updates,
which I would characterize as large collections of interdependent
package, and maybe kernel, revisions.  These are best treated
together, as a new release, which imo you should reinstall from
scratch.  The other issue is installing software in a coherent way
(packages) vs installing in an ad hoc way (direct sourc tar
builds). I've already stated my preference: the benefits of managed
packages far outweigh the minor time savings of not using them.

-- 
rshapiro@bbn.com