Arch Linux

magnum_opus

Member

Registered: 2005-01-26

Posts: 132

Re: Arch now has RPM support ?

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.

So you're telling me arch/pacman can't handle there being more than one revision of a library? That sounds pretty limited if you ask me..

yeah and we like it that way

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?

Allowing for more than one package format does not necessarily entail multiple package managers.

well then it entails a package manager that doesn't exist yet.

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.

And this is the exact same attitude that's been holding Linux back from mainstream acceptance for years. If developers are constantly having to jump through hoops to keep up with libraries that are updated multiple times each year it's just a breeding ground for instability. If a new library breaks backwards compatability it should not be immediately included, just because it's supposedly the latest and the greatest.

and its also the attitude that gets us things like 9p2000 in the kernel. linux's strength is it's utter lack of direction, if you wan't a coherent goal with a uniform enviroment go play with a BSD, this is linux many of us love it's lack of rules and couldn't give a hoot if it has "mainstream acceptance" (which as long as you don't define "mainstream" as "desktop" it actually does)

I've enjoyed using Arch so far, but the mentalities I'm finding on this board are making me seriously question the future of this distro. I'm hearing lots of things that remind me of the b.s. people used to spout off on the Gentoo forums, and it's pretty clear to most that their falling apart at the moment due to the people running the show over there, please don't let the same happen to arch, it really does seem to be a promising distro...

um smeg off if you don't like?

Gullible Jones

Member

Registered: 2004-12-29

Posts: 4,863

Re: Arch now has RPM support ?

This is stupid. Arch is Arch, and will continue to be, no matter what idiotic things the LSB mandates. We already have rpmunpack and makepkg (and wocka if you want to install QT, which hopefully will be changed at some point), and that's enough. We have BSD initscripts, and they work. I know I'm usually annoyed about the proliferation of distros, but my annoyance is because those distros are mostly LSB-compliant pieces of crap with garbagy package management, labyrinthine SysV initscripts, hideously outdated software, and boot times that make Windows XP look downright snappy. We comply with the standards quite well enough to get by, thank you, and it's quite easy to make PKGBUILDs.

[/rant]