APT - With Your Favorite Distribution

One of the most-heard complains from people who use distributions like Red Hat, Mandrake or SuSE is the "dependency hell" problem. You want to install an RPM and bang -- you have a dependency problem. There have been a few attempts to overcome dependency problems: SuSE with their YOU (Your Online Update), Mandrake with URPMI, and Redhat with their UP2date program. There is also a solution from Aduva called Aduvizor, but it's not supporting the latest distributions yet. Read on to learn about another interesting solution ... One of the solutions is Ximian Red Carpet (which is available to most of the distributions, freely or by subscription for increased download speed), however Red Carpet has one big problem -- if the package is not on Ximian Red-Carpet servers (like, umm, KDE packages), you're (again) on your own.

Then there is another solution from Connectiva in Brazil, which has made something called APT4RPM -- basically an APT wrapper around RPM database on your machines, so you can use all of Debian's APT features (sans DSELECT feature) to upgrade your packages, or your entire distribution. (So now you can use your favorite distribution AND APT to update it.)

Two open source developers have improved Connectiva's solution to work with ANY RPM-4 based solution, and the [not finished yet but seems pretty stable solution] is at APT4RPM project pages in sourceforge. I have decided to give a test on my Redhat 7.2 machine. I installed the binaries, edited the /etc/apt/sources.list (just remove the # from your distribution's mirror), typed "apt-get dist-update," crossed my fingers -- and lo and behold, 48 new packages were installed, 7 were upgraded, and I only had to press "enter" to start the ball rolling!

So, for those of you who want to test it -- the URL is above (and if you could help with creating mirrors for your favorite distribution - that would be very helpful, thank you), you might want to try it. Just don't forget to read the FAQ before doing anything, and report bugs to the authors. Note: although the binaries are for Red Hat, the SRPMS are right there so you can just recompile it on your favorite distribution. Enjoy.

Comments

rpm

[ChazeFroy]

rpm -Fvh slackware.rpm

Red Hat -> Debian via Connectiva apt

[Nater]

Back in August I decided to give Debian a try. I downloaded the apt and dpkg SRPMs from Connectiva and installed them on my Red Hat 7.0 system. It took a bit of shoe horning to get them in, but I made it happen and they worked.

Then I went into the /etc/apt directory and pointed everything at the Debian archives instead of Connectiva. At first I tried to just aim it at ftp.redhat.com and update my 7.0 install, but apt and the Red Hat archive didn't like each other. Anyway, I ran apt-get update and got the Debian lists, then was able (with a lot of manual this-and-that that I really should have documented) to apt-get dist-upgrade into Debian stable without rebooting.

Since I was dialing up at the time, it took a while, like a week or so, just to download it all. Once I got everything installed, I let it run for a while for shits and giggles. For a period of almost a month, I had a couple of virtual consoles logged in, a couple displaying Debian's /etc/issue and a couple displaying Red Hat's /etc/issue. Then I decided to do the kernel, too, and rebooted.

I'm still finding a bit of Red Hat cruft now and then. Oh well.