apt vs urpmi

Vincent Danen vdanen at annvix.org
Wed May 3 09:07:03 PDT 2006


* Gary Greene <greeneg at arklinux.org> [2006-05-03 11:25:08 -0400]:

ugh... html mail doesn't play nice with mutt for replies so this might
be a bit wierd.

> Hopefully I can help with this discussion as I used to be involved
> with   
> Mandrake's Cooker and am now using Apt-RPM on PhoeNUX OS, the Linux
> distro
> that I am project
> leader for. The differences that I see for the average user is that
> apt 
> has a different command structure, the apparent lack of ability to
> handle
> different media at
> command line instead of editing a config file, and the fact that urpmi 
> has a few neat little features like displaying the README.urpmi after
> the
> package is installed. The
> difference in command structures is, while annoying that your users
> would 
> have to get used to a new way of doing things, understandable as urpmi
> uses
> GNU-styled command
> arguments (a vestige of it's Perl underside) while apt uses it's own 
> style of arguments. Panu may be able to comment on the lack of media
> filtering better than I can.
> Finally the display of the README.what-ever-you-want-to-call-it can 
> easily be scripted using the Lua extension system.

Yeah, I know the commandline will be different which will probably be
harder for me than any of my users... =)  I actually work for Mandriva
so have been using (and used to) urpmi since the day it was written.
But I'm up to the challenge.  I think I'll probably miss (and screw up)
the commandline stuff for a while, but it'll get better.  Also, Annvix
does a *lot* of stuff different, so even though it was originally based
on Mandriva, the entire system has changed to the point it doesn't even
resemble Mandriva anymore except for urpmi (things like runit vs
sysvinit and other changes).  So "change" isn't necessarily a downside
as those of us using Annvix know there is not a single distro out there
like it.

Oh, and "average user" isn't a word we use with Annvix... there are no
"average users".  =)

As far as the README.urpmi stuff goes, I don't think I've ever really
used it.  In Annvix, we use the OpenBSD "man afterboot" approach and
build dynamic manpages with information.  What little information needs
to be immediately apparent (such as setting up a password for mysql,
say) gets sent to STDOUT in the %post scripts.  I think maybe one
package has a README.urpmi, so that's not a big issue.

Media filtering could be a bit of an issue, but I don't think it should
be bad.  Because of how differently we do things, the "average" Annvix
user should have two media: the main annvix medium and the ports medium
(the latter is compiled-from-source rpms stored in a local repository on
the machine).  The chances of things conflicting there are pretty small.
We don't have to worry about main (7 CDs) vs updates vs community vs
contribs vs PLF vs all the other urpmi media out there.

> Also, from an ex-urpmi users standpoint, apt seems to play better with 
> speed than urpmi as well due to the fact that it is all in a compiled
> language.

Oh absolutely.  I kinda new that apt would likely be faster and, I'm
assuming, have a smaller footprint as well.  With every urpmi operation,
perl needs to be run which gives us nice overhead.  With apt, there is
no overhead, which is good.

Annvix is meant to be fast and light.  And, if I understand correctly,
it handles GPG signatures now (I think when I first looked at apt-rpm
a few years ago it didn't).  That is the other thing that makes apt
viable for me.

> There are more than a few distributions that have interest in keeping 
> Apt-RPM continuing with development, as the other options are just NOT
> an
> option due to speed and
> performance issues, and as noted the added dependancies that they
> bring   
> with them.

I'm glad to hear that there is interest in ongoing development.  I don't
want to ditch urpmi just to pick up something that may be gone in a year
or two and force me to go back to urpmi.

And if apt has a good focus on security, then I'm even happier.


-- 
Annvix - Secure Linux Server: http://annvix.org/
"lynx -source http://linsec.ca/vdanen.asc | gpg --import"
{FEE30AD4 : 7F6C A60C 06C2 4811 FA1C  A2BC 2EBC 5E32 FEE3 0AD4}
Wasting time like it was free...
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