Unifying Linux Package Management

Job Diogenes Ribeiro Borges writes "The Smart Package Manager is an intelligent tool that works on the 'dependency hell' of software upgrading and installation on linux. Works with all major distributions (APT, APT-RPM, YUM, URPMI, etc), supporting multiple sources and technologies concurrently. Yes, you could install from multiple sources, from deb, rpm, tgz at same time! Smart Package Manager is being developed by Conectiva and is the tool that makes the Magic of CrossPlatform package management, behind the recently announced 'Four Linux Vendors Agree On An LSB Implementation.' You can get screenshots here (portuguese texts) and a README here."

Comments

Re:Same standard, multiple implementations

[Gherald]

> RPM is a package. Just like DEB.
> Apt is a package manager, just like Yum.
> Please do not confuse them.

You are the one that is confused: RPM is a recursive acronym for "RPM Package Manager." Yum is just an alternative that uses the same format. Observe:

# whatis rpm
rpm (8) - RPM Package Manager

Re:no gentoo?

[Kethinov]

Gentoo is a fading niche and a fad. Ubuntu is distro of the month now. And soon it too will fade.

People like to talk about how Linux is so fragmented, but in reality only Debian and Redhat actually matter (along with 100% compatible derivatives... Ubuntu, this is NOT you). If the two of them got together and agreed on a single fucking binary package format there'd be no more Linux binary inconsistency problems.

You'd be able to download your software from a repository or go to a website and download it like Windows exe installers. Best of both worlds. All that's stopping that from happening is the Redhat vs. Debian wars. Both sides of the development circle are heavily bigoted, believe their way is better, and refuse to work together.

If Redhat and Debian, the two most important distros, quit competing and started working together, Linux would be a lot more ubiquitous.