Arch Linux

n0gabor

Member

From: Hungary / Budapest

Registered: 2006-02-10

Posts: 95

Re: Arch now has RPM support ?

This is one time where i wish the AUR had the option to vote AGAINST a package being moved to community.

Before i switched to Arch last year i used Suse 9.3.
They had gaim 1.1 in that release, and as there were many improvements in gaim 1.5 i wanted to use that.
Gaim site didn't have an rpm for Suse, so i used the src.rpm.

Yast (Suse front end for rpm) told me there was 1 dependency error so i thought fixing would be easy.

To get gaim installed i had to check the dependecies for about 20 packages manually, and upgrade 5 of them with newer versions, none of which were in the official Suse repositiories.
It took me 8 hours to get gaim 1.5 running.

That was when i started looking for another distro.
I miss some of the tools SuSe has (Sax in textmode is great for configuring X11) , but since i switched to Arch i NEVER have missed rpm.

I am ok with it being in the aur , but i think the reasons for not putting aurbuild in community are just as valid (probably more) for keeping rpm in UNSUPPORTED.

I agree you, but RPM can help when installing apps like cinelerra or the special hunarian edition of OpenOffice, with a lot of extras, or Citrix client, Opera etc... they come only in RPMs or DEBs.
If you look at the PKGBUILDs of opera and OpenOffice, they are built from RPMs too with the rpmextract utility, and a lot of hacking.
You also can't use RPM like in fedora or SuSE, becouse all your dependency would be missing (no other RPMs installed), so you must use it without dependency checking (--nodeps). Openoffice RPMS, Opera static RPMS, Cinerella RPMS often don't have, or only have a few dependencies, so you install them with pacman, and then the RPM.
Commerical software RPMS are also made with a few or no dependencies...

Xaero_Vincent

Member

Registered: 2006-05-11

Posts: 23

Re: Arch now has RPM support ?

This is one time where i wish the AUR had the option to vote AGAINST a package being moved to community.

Before i switched to Arch last year i used Suse 9.3.
They had gaim 1.1 in that release, and as there were many improvements in gaim 1.5 i wanted to use that.
Gaim site didn't have an rpm for Suse, so i used the src.rpm.

Yast (Suse front end for rpm) told me there was 1 dependency error so i thought fixing would be easy.

To get gaim installed i had to check the dependecies for about 20 packages manually, and upgrade 5 of them with newer versions, none of which were in the official Suse repositiories.
It took me 8 hours to get gaim 1.5 running.

That was when i started looking for another distro.
I miss some of the tools SuSe has (Sax in textmode is great for configuring X11) , but since i switched to Arch i NEVER have missed rpm.

I am ok with it being in the aur , but i think the reasons for not putting aurbuild in community are just as valid (probably more) for keeping rpm in UNSUPPORTED.

I think your misinterpreting this. If RPM was in community it would just mean that users could install it easier *IF* they want to without worrying about compling it and finding all the dependencies. It can be completely opitional for advanced users. Its the same thing with Slackware, where RPM support is optional but not recommened.

RPM is one most popular formats, so there are thousands and thousands of them floating on the net. Extracting RPMs with a script and creating a pkgbuild is the desired solution, but sometimes not the most convenient for people who dont have time to do that or dont know how yet (like me, though I plan to learn soon).

Also, if users were to install YUM on top of it, there could be dependency checking for it as well.

n0gabor

Member

From: Hungary / Budapest

Registered: 2006-02-10

Posts: 95

Re: Arch now has RPM support ?

the dependency checking won't work, becouse you must have all installed packages as RPMs...but then it wont be Archlinux anymore:)

lumiwa

Member

Registered: 2005-12-26

Posts: 712

Re: Arch now has RPM support ?

If you want to use rpms, use an rpm-based distro. If you want to use Arch, be loyal and support the ongoing outstanding work being done on pacman, and if you find you have to use an occasional rpm, use one of the suggested workarounds.

Above was not so nice, IMHO...I understood like in dictatorship political system: if you don't like me choose another country...

Offline

Cerebral

Forum Fellow

From: Waterloo, ON, CA

Registered: 2005-04-08

Posts: 3,108

Website

Re: Arch now has RPM support ?

Mixing package managers is always a nightmare.  Some of you are saying things can be installed by ignoring dependencies - that might be true to a degree, but many, if not most, times that just won't work.

For example, let's pretend there's an RPM for mypackage.  It depends on mylib.
So, you install mylib with pacman, which installs /usr/lib/mylib.so.
Then you say "great, I've got the dependencies, let's install" and proceed to install mypackage.rpm using --nodeps.  Then it doesn't work.  Why?  Because it's built against mylib.so.5, which the arch package doesn't provide.  Do you even know how to check which filenames a program expects for its dynamic libraries?

Let's say you do know how to use ldd, and find out you need a file called 'mylib.so.5' instead of 'mylib.so'. So, do you have the right version of the lib?  Can you make a symlink and expect it to work? Even if you can, do you want to be making a ton of random symlinks all over the place just so libraries match up with prebuilt RPMs?  It gets really ugly, really fast - and that's only if you know how to use ldd.  If you don't, then you'll be completely lost.  I can see the forum posts now - "I've installed this dep with pacman, then used RPM to install mypackage - why doesn't it work?!"

-=edit=- 777 posts!  Woot!  I'm globally rwx! Nobody try to rm -f me.  -=/edit=-

user

Member

Registered: 2006-03-29

Posts: 465

Re: Arch now has RPM support ?

use alien for rpm

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n0gabor

Member

From: Hungary / Budapest

Registered: 2006-02-10

Posts: 95

Re: Arch now has RPM support ?

use alien for rpm

no alien in repos, or in AUR. and alien doesn't support pacman packages. that would be good...or even wether checkinstall supports pacman

iphitus

Forum Fellow

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2004-10-09

Posts: 4,927

Re: Arch now has RPM support ?

n0gabor, then be a good user, and make a PKGBUILD for alien, or the rpm based program.

I've yet to hear a single situation where RPM would be beneficial. most programs have a PKGBUILD, even some of those only available precompiled. For those that dont, which would be corner cases at best it's not difficult at all to build a PKGBUILD yourself.

RPM will not go into community. It won't get the votes, and it has no place within Arch. You'll probably have a hard time finding a TU willing to move it in there anyway.

Most TU's would probably rather spend the time, to help you write a PKGBUILD for your corner case program.

The PKGBUILD is there however, if you have some obscure program wish to use it.

James

shastry

Member

From: Bangalore, India

Registered: 2004-08-24

Posts: 44

Website

Re: Arch now has RPM support ?

Let me make this very clear:
I created the RPM package because of personal needs while installing commercial software (Example: Staroffice, ICC- Intel C++ compiler). I know that there are ways of getting the RPMs out of the installers and converting them to pacman packages. But IMO its a real PITA to fiddle with such basic stuff..pure waste of time searching for installer cache and copying them over, then writing a PKGBUILD etc etc. I thought many users would be facing similar issues. So I uploaded it to AUR (I kept it away from community because of the deaththreats from Willy )

Besides, I also couldn't get some RPMs extracted with rpmextract (gizmo-project RPMs for instance).

And... last time i heard, RPM 'support' (doesn't have to be primary package manager) is in the LSB spec. So one small step ahead towards LSB.

And to all of those RPM converter followers over there.. rpm -ivh --nodeps is far far easier than what you suggest. And most of the normal users wouldn't bother with creating own packages... people just want stuff to work!

Note: No flames please. Please be rational in your discussions. If you don't like RPMs for personal reasons, you are not obligated to use it. I have to use it because of the way in which the software I use is distributed. I believe a lot of other users want RPM for the same reason.
Also note that this is NOT to replace the default arch packaging. WE LOVE PACMAN! (PACMAN FOR PRESIDENT!!!)
The package is puprely for compatibility reasons (that too mostly for commercial software).

Xaero_Vincent

Member

Registered: 2006-05-11

Posts: 23

Re: Arch now has RPM support ?

Shastry,

Could you foward the "elfutils" dependency package to community or somewhere? I havent had any luck building/installing RPM without it.

Thanks,
Vincent

codemac

Member

From: Cliche Tech Place

Registered: 2005-05-13

Posts: 794

Website

Re: Arch now has RPM support ?

The reason why something like rpm is so dangerous to have in [community], is that putting rpm on the archlinux server, we are then supporting _every single_ rpm out there.  While I know it is not the intention of shastry to have archlinux support all rpms, it is inherent with having the rpm package available through community.

rpm will never see [community] as long as archlinux isn't using .rpm for packages.

EDIT:  What I will support though is conversion scripts.  If you have something that will turn an rpm into a .pkg.tar.gz, that's cool.  It won't do anything horrible to people's system, and then they can just use pacman to remove it anyways.  This is obviously a much trickier task without the rpm command, but rpmextract.sh is pretty ownage.  Though makepkg is cool enough you very well could call it a conversion script.  Put rpmextract.sh in the build() section and voila.  hmm, so I don't even know if I support conversion scripts, but at least they don't go around trying to install things in non-standard places outside of package management.

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iphitus

Forum Fellow

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2004-10-09

Posts: 4,927

Re: Arch now has RPM support ?

So I uploaded it to AUR (I kept it away from community because of the deaththreats from Willy )

you've probably got my death threats by now too   :twisted:  :twisted:  You've got me, TomK, WillySilly and Cerebral watching, so it's good to know it will never see community lol.

Besides, I also couldn't get some RPMs extracted with rpmextract (gizmo-project RPMs for instance).

Try rpmunpack instead. afaik rpmextract only supports gzipped rpms, but rpmunpack does them all.

And... last time i heard, RPM 'support' (doesn't have to be primary package manager) is in the LSB spec. So one small step ahead towards LSB.

take a look at the discussion we had about LSB, a search should pick it up. It ended up pretty unanimous that Arch has no need to support the LSB for a range of reasons I won't detail here, cause it's OT.

The package is puprely for compatibility reasons (that too mostly for commercial software).

make a PKGBUILD chuck it in AUR, then everyone else has an easy way to install such programs.

in most cases, all the PKGBUILD will need to be is a rpmunpack, cp -a, then set some permissions.

James

lumiwa

Member

Registered: 2005-12-26

Posts: 712

Re: Arch now has RPM support ?

Shastry,

Could you foward the "elfutils" dependency package to community or somewhere? I havent had any luck building/installing RPM without it.

Thanks,
Vincent

I am looking for elfutil too

BTW, Debian has rpm too (http://packages.debian.org/stable/admin/)

shastry

Member

From: Bangalore, India

Registered: 2004-08-24

Posts: 44

Website

Re: Arch now has RPM support ?

Shastry,

Could you foward the "elfutils" dependency package to community or somewhere? I havent had any luck building/installing RPM without it.

Thanks,
Vincent

I am looking for elfutil too

BTW, Debian has rpm too (http://packages.debian.org/stable/admin/)

Oops sorry for that.. i had some  old elfutils lying around.. i'll put up the pkgbuild soon.

n0gabor

Member

From: Hungary / Budapest

Registered: 2006-02-10

Posts: 95

Re: Arch now has RPM support ?

i totaly agree with shastry, and i understand the point of view of the other TU-s too. if it would be in community then it would confuse people...

why RPM needs elfutils? i removed this dependency frm the PKGBUILD, build it, then it worked me fine...

shastry

Member

From: Bangalore, India

Registered: 2004-08-24

Posts: 44

Website

Re: Arch now has RPM support ?

why RPM needs elfutils? i removed this dependency frm the PKGBUILD, build it, then it worked me fine...

Yes it doesn't.. Its fixed now.

user

Member

Registered: 2006-03-29

Posts: 465

Re: Arch now has RPM support ?

use alien for rpm

no alien in repos, or in AUR.

Then how about superpaco, it's in AUR

superpaco

SuperPaco installs Debian, RPM or Slackware binary packages without requiring dpkg, rpm or pkgtool, and logs them with paco.
To install RPM packages, cpio and ( rpm2cpio or rpmunpack ) are required.
SuperPaco is currently distributed along with the paco sources.

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I removed my sig, cause i select the flag, the flag often the target of enemy.

SAR brain-tumor
[img]http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/460/cellphonethumb0ff.jpg[/img]

sebcactus

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2005-01-27

Posts: 277

Re: Arch now has RPM support ?

Without standards, things fall apart, and if Arch doesn't care about at least trying to follow LSB standards, then it doesn't need to be called Arch Linux, just Arch OS or something.

I think the Linux name comes from the kernel, not the packages.

Software developers, even a good portion of openIf we lived in a world where all users had a bit of common sense this wouldn't be an issue, but unfortunately for us, we live in realitIf we lived in a world where all users had a bit of common sense this wouldn't be an issue, but unfortunately for us, we live in reay source ones, don't want to have to release a different package for every single package manager or distro, so they usually only release one for the format with the largest market share, and like it or not, that's RPM.

Good software developers should provide another way to install their software (like providing a install script). Even Matlab provides one, and I am very surprised that there isn't any for Maple...
Making packages is distsributions dev/community's job.

Also, the argument that putting this RPM installer into the "community" repo will mean that "we have to support it" is complete B.S. Any user with half a bit of common sense realizes that things installed from a community driven repo will not have nearly the same level of support the official repos offer...

If we lived in a world where all users had a bit of common sense this wouldn't be an issue, but unfortunately for us, we live in reality . Seriously, so many people don't RTFM and will go to the forum asking for help to install lots of RPM.

iphitus

Forum Fellow

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2004-10-09

Posts: 4,927

Re: Arch now has RPM support ?

The world falling apart if arch doesnt follow LSB? you don't understand what the LSB entails. The changes to arch would change arch pretty dramatically, and entail holding arch to older versions of some packages. It's a complete contradiction of what arch is.

Arch has countless methods to install RPMS, so it's not like it's impossible. You can make a PKGBUILD, use rpmunpack, or grab RPM from the AUR yourself. Most commercial rpm based packages have a PKGBUILD in the AUR, and for the few that dont, you can grab rpm yourself, or write your own and contribute it to the AUR.

Arch would gain nothing by having rpm in [community], and it would only serve there for users to abuse their systems by installing packages that shouldnt be installed.

James

joepotter

Member

From: Orlando, Fl. USA

Registered: 2005-12-31

Posts: 31

Re: Arch now has RPM support ?

The world falling apart if arch doesnt follow LSB? you don't understand what the LSB entails.  ...

I am under the impression that the LSB mandates no BSD style init scripts. I also am told that Slackware stopped supporting BSD style boot up several versions ago for this reason. Am I correct?

I would hate to see Arch change; does everything have to be system V?

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Regards, Joe

iBertus

Member

From: Greenville, NC

Registered: 2004-11-04

Posts: 2,228

Re: Arch now has RPM support ?

... Furthermore, to force users to have to look in obscure places or jump thru hoops just to gain RPM support fails the methodology of KISS which Arch is supposed to pride itself on.....

Err, no! RPMs are no way even close to KISS! You may feel free to do whatever you want to your system, but you can't say that it's KISS to support two package management systems. The whole idea of using both RPM and pacman on the same system is so bad that I can't believe that anyone is even considering it.

And about the before mentioned standards: how closely do you think any distro follows these standards? I'd say that non-commercial distros like Arch are better for standards complience than those with commercial backing...

sweiss

Member

Registered: 2004-02-16

Posts: 635

Re: Arch now has RPM support ?

It's not that RPM is good or bad, it's simply different. And this is a problem because RPM is not aware of pacman and vice versa, and this can cause quite a few conflicts.

So if an RPM is really the only way to go, there should be a PKGBUILD to create a standard Arch package from it, as iphitus already stated.

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iBertus

Member

From: Greenville, NC

Registered: 2004-11-04

Posts: 2,228

Re: Arch now has RPM support ?

It's not that RPM is good or bad, it's simply different. And this is a problem because RPM is not aware of pacman and vice versa, and this can cause quite a few conflicts.

So if an RPM is really the only way to go, there should be a PKGBUILD to create a standard Arch package from it, as iphitus already stated.

Yes, and while this is not as optimal as compiling from source when building a package, it is usually easy to implement. If you can get the source of your needed app, you should build from source using a PKGBUILD of your own creation, as this will ensure that the build is done with the proper CFLAGS. Lots of stuff distributed in RPM format is built for i386 instead of i686, but you can't really do anything about it unless you can get the source.

iphitus

Forum Fellow

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2004-10-09

Posts: 4,927

Re: Arch now has RPM support ?

I never said I was particularly fond of RPM myself, but I am fond of standards. If you don't like a standard, try to change it... don't just ignore it. I hate to do this, but a distro that doesn't care about standards such as the LSB is no better than Microsoft's Internet Explorer not following web standards properly. It's for the good of Linux in general to have standards, and once again, if you disagree with part of it, see what you can do to change it! From what I've heard the next revision is going to allow .debs in addition to rpms, so it's not impossible for pacman packages to become an accepted part of the standard too

Do you realise what the LSB entails?

The LSB specifies versions of various libraries we must use to retain ABI compatibility. This means, limiting the versions of countless packages to those contained in the LSB, and in many cases, we'd have to force downgrades on our users, and have another massive testing move as we downgrade and recompile everything in the repos against the versions contained in the LSB. This is entirely contradictory to Arch's goals and objectives. The LSB was not made for Arch and offers no room for Arch.

It's quite unlikely that pacman packages will become an accepted part of the standard -- what's the point of a standard if it allows every distro package manager in existance? That whole section would become practically invalid. On top of that, there's no current method or scripts to convert between rpm or deb to pacman's format.

Because a standard is there, doesnt mean everyone should use it. Maybe you should look at what following the standard actually involves and what is actually in the standard before promoting it. Arch has no plans to, and will never be LSB compliant. If you want an LSB compliant distro - look elsewhere. I hear Mandriva has followed the LSB for a while.

patroclo7

Member

From: Bassano del Grappa, ITALY

Registered: 2006-01-11

Posts: 915

Re: Arch now has RPM support ?

The inability to handle more than one revision of a library is seen here as a feature, not as a limitation: you can read about it in many comparisons between arch and gentoo, for example. The same for the inability to install directly rpm packages.
At a first glance, it could seem odd that an inability to do something is regarded as a feature. On the contrary, I think that this is in this case (and in many other cases) true: to allow multiple versions of a library on the same system is highly problematic (as you can see in gentoo); to install rpm packages directly in a pacman based system (or in a portage based system) - instead of transalting in a monotonous way rpms in tar.gz, when this is unavoidable - causes inconsistencies.

Therefore, the inability to do such unuseful and dangerous things is a feature from two points of view: the basic user is not invited to do unuseful and dangerous things; the developers do not loose their time in doing unuseful and dangerous things.

About the LSB standards, I agree with iphitus that they are not laws and that they contradict almost everything in arch philosophy: an LSB compliant arch would not be arch at all. I think that many other important (and bigger) distros are in a similar situation, so that it is likely that those standards will be soon abandoned.

During these flames, the invitations to look for another distribution are often seen as an injury, but I think that this is not always true.  In my understanding of the arch point of view on linux and open source software, rpm support and multiple versions of the same library are incompatible with such a point of view. Thus, if one maintains that these are necessary features, may be that archlinux is not his perfect distro. The advice to look for another distro is not an injury, but a friendly advice. Replying with negative prophecies abot "the future of this distro" is a bit more injurious.

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