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:A step in the Right? direction?

[garcia]

Linux distributions have a big problem with package installation and management from an end user point of view. They are a MAJOR pain in the ass, even for experienced users like myself.

Then why are we bothering to have users have to search all over the net for different packages? Why can't the individual distributions handle their own package distribution?

I haven't bothered with anything other than a kernel tarball since moving to Debian several years ago. The only downside I see to apt-get is that I find myself less knowledgeable about my system because I am never installing anything or configuring anything. Everything is setup to go right out of the box.

Let's not worry about a single "base" and let's just let the distributions handle everything for themselves.

Maybe I'm confused...

[Se7enLC]

Isn't the idea of a "Unified Package Management System" a way for multiple distributions to use the same installation source? Why on earth did they make a way for a single distribution to use MULTIPLE sources? that's not unified at all....if I wanted to install RPMs, DEBs, and TGZs on my system all at once, I'd have done it

Re:Why all the fuss?

[Ava3ar]

control LOL, u have about as much control as fire does blocking water