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

Re:rpm

[Anonymous Coward]

well actually: rpm -Uvh slackware.rpm

but still funny :)

No sir, I don't like it

[Anonymous Coward]

I have sores on my penis. Fuck sores. They're fucking sore. Sorry.

yvorezr rk vasvreab

[Anonymous Coward]

yvorezr rk vasvreab

Re:run slackware

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I did. And there is a patch for it. So shut the fuck up.

Re:CRITICAL FACTS THAT YOUR KIDS WILL NOT LEARN IN

[Anonymous Coward]

How to Be A White Man

by Daniel Bush

A white man, first of all, must never see himself as being white. When looking into a mirror this should be the furthest thought from his head. He should never feel white as he walks past a police officer or walks freely through a store without being followed.

If the white man listens to rap music, this is preferable, particularly someone like Puff Daddy or Lauryn Hill who will make him feel like a real bad Black mother-fucker. The more pale he is the more he should think of himself as being Black. Or at least as part of Black culture.

If he doesn't like rap music, a white man should at least read an occasional Black novel and refer to it often when talking about literature and diversity. He should have several Black friends that make him Black by association.

Or if he doesn't have black friends he should at least have a couple of Latino friends so he can refer to something when talking about diversity. If the white man has fucked a Latino women, that is perfect. He becomes Latino by association.

There must be occasional thoughts about being white that flicker through his head, but this should be ok because he idealizes leaders like Bobby Kennedy, JFK, and even Martin Luther King Jr. He should know at least one Dr. King quote and must repeat it often like he has found great wisdom.

He should have very little idea what King's day to day struggle was actually like. This is important.

All of the leaders he idealizes must be dead. Unless they do not acknowledge being white. If they make generic statements about racial healing and justice, this is fine. These statements are really further ways of not acknowledging they are white. This is always the case.

A liberal white man can feel good about being white while hanging out with all his good white liberal buddies. This is a way of avoiding what it means to be white. A good way.

If for some reason a good white man gets cornered into listening to someone's story of oppression, he must make statements like "I can't help being white," or even better, "Life is hard, get a helmet." He must somehow-with whatever degree of tactfulness - cut the conversation off or prove he is not listening as quickly as possible.

A white man must never admit that white oppression is real in America and that it hurts people. More important, he must never admit that he is somehow a part of this oppression and benefiting from it.

If he does admit he is complicit in white oppression, he must feel completely powerless about doing anything about his complicitness. He must never, under any circumstances, attempt to be accountable for being white.

He must never, under any circumstances, admit that he is not in control. Or that he could benefit from seriously listening to people who are not white. He must always have the last word. At the very least, he must speak up to defend himself. This is honorable and even noble. And a good place to quote King.

The perfect white man must never look at the institutions he is part of or his social circles and think of them as being very white. Much more important is for him to celebrate white culture and white history as being the most true and beautiful and significant.

If the Latino women he fucked gets made at him and says he acts like a white man, he must tell her she is crazy and point out the black friends he has. Then, he should go listen to Puff Daddy and become even more of Black bad ass. He should then get a corporate job and marry a blond woman.

The most perfect white man must feel how great and liberal and white he is without ever consulting a person of color. If he does have friends of color they must come from rich families.

Should the topic of race come up ever, and should he ever slip up and admit that he is white, he must put the person of color he is talking to into a position where that person is responsible for educating him.

He must never be responsible for educating himself, for reading books on race or for thinking about the nature of oppression. Except for that Dr. King quote he knows by heart.

He should really love and admire the greatness of American Indian culture. But he must never think about or become deeply involved in the present day struggles of present day Indians. He should call them Native Americans.

A white man who really knows how to be a white man will act as though he is a part of every non-white culture in America. He will live as if every real member of that culture is dead.

i want to see two things...

[banky]

I want to see two things in `configure` - a 'make uninstall` target being mandatory, and having part of `make install` copy the configure.status (or whatever script it is that holds the current configure string) to somewhere. The 'package' (source tarball) need not be aware of the existence of this script, really, just that it exists automatically as part of the install. That way, I can run it with some target like --uninstall and remove the binaries/man/etc stuff, or drop it into the source tree when I download from scratch (and have removed the original source tree).