Several days ago I made the naive assumption that all packages with the same name, provided either by third-party packagers or Fedora Core, would have the same dependencies. Well, I was dead wrong. I posted a complaint and a query on this list regarding my experience, https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list/2004-December/msg01893.html. I had several exchanges with the packager who caused me such vexation but never got a satisfactory answer regarding the differences between the packages he provided and the ones provided by Fedora. Here are samples of the dependency requirements from three different packagers for one of the packages which got me into what I called a "dependency hell": perl-XML-Parser from Fedora =========================== $ rpm -qp --requires http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/3/i386/os/Fedora/RPMS/perl-XML-Parser-2.34-5.i386.rpm perl >= 2:5.8.0 perl-libwww-perl perl-URI expat rpmlib(PayloadFilesHavePrefix) <= 4.0-1 rpmlib(CompressedFileNames) <= 3.0.4-1 rpmlib(VersionedDependencies) <= 3.0.3-1 libc.so.6 libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.0) libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.1.3) libexpat.so.0 perl >= 0:5.004 perl(Carp) perl(DynaLoader) perl(overload) perl(strict) perl(vars) perl-XML-Parser from Dag ======================== $ rpm -qp --requires perl-XML-Parser-2.34-1.1.fc3.rf.i386.rpm libc.so.6 libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.0) libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.1.3) libexpat.so.0 perl >= 0:5.004 perl >= 0:5.004 perl(Carp) perl(DynaLoader) perl(overload) perl(strict) perl(vars) rpmlib(CompressedFileNames) <= 3.0.4-1 rpmlib(PayloadFilesHavePrefix) <= 4.0-1 rpmlib(VersionedDependencies) <= 3.0.3-1 perl-XML-Parser from ATrpms =========================== $ rpm -qp --requires perl-XML-Parser-2.34-5_2.rhfc3.at.i386.rpm warning: perl-XML-Parser-2.34-5_2.rhfc3.at.i386.rpm: V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 66534c2b atrpms-perl-module-helper libc.so.6 libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.0) libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.1.3) libexpat.so.0 perl >= 0:5.004 perl(:WITH_ITHREADS) perl(:WITH_LARGEFILES) perl(:WITH_THREADS) perl(Carp) perl(DynaLoader) perl(overload) perl(strict) perl(vars) rpmlib(CompressedFileNames) <= 3.0.4-1 rpmlib(PayloadFilesHavePrefix) <= 4.0-1 rpmlib(VersionedDependencies) <= 3.0.3-1 Dag Wieer's package has the least dependencies. After my last experience this would appear to be for the good. The code for perl-XML-Parser comes from a common source, www.cpan.org. So, why the difference in dependencies? Why are third-party packagers not using the source rpm and spec file from Fedora Core so that this difference in dependencies does not occur? Any way, what I have learned from venturing beyond Fedora mirrors is that the selection of third-party packagers/repositories does matter. Peace and joy! Kam Leo __________________________________________________________________ Switch to Netscape Internet Service. As low as $9.95 a month -- Sign up today at http://isp.netscape.com/register Netscape. Just the Net You Need. New! Netscape Toolbar for Internet Explorer Search from anywhere on the Web and block those annoying pop-ups. Download now at http://channels.netscape.com/ns/search/install.jsp
