[geeks] organization idea

[Joshua D Boyd]

On Wed, Nov 21, 2001 at 01:28:50PM -0800, Gregory Leblanc wrote:
> It is.  It's called "package management".  When I want to get rid of my
> gtk+ install I type 'apt-get remove gtk+', 'rpm -e gtk+', or 'pkgrm
> gtk+'.  Sure, not exactly the approach above, but this one scales to an
> infinite number of packages, and controls all of the files, not just the
> ones that go into $prefix/bin.  Some people don't like package
> management, but I find it to be essential for keeping any large number
> of machines in-sync with the same package versions on all machines.  Not
> sure what the arguments about it are, except maybe that people have had
> trouble with poorly packaged software.  

Presumably, my system could easily by script to also deal with $PREFIX/man, 
$PREFIX/lib/ etc.

And there are very good reasons why package managers can be problematic.  For
instance, needing a custom compiled version of a library (like to get GTK to 
work with a Wacom, since the guy who prepared the package forgot the 
--with-xinput flag on the ./configure step), or needing to use a version of the
software that hasn't been packaged yet (while most things have rpms, many, many
things don't have .debs at this time).


-- 
Joshua D. Boyd