Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
Well, what I really want is the ability to have more than one version of
an application on my machine at a time so I can test the cutting edge
version and take advantage of its features while being able to fall back
to the old reliable release as needed, but that seems to be way too much
to ask from the rpm/yum school of thought, particularly if they blindly
track the FHS committee's arbitrary ideas about where files have to
live. But, an application crash once in a while is easier to tolerate
than not booting after an update, and I don't think it is unreasonable
to want a stable kernel AND current apps. Firefox 2.x might still have
a few bugs, but it probably won't crash my machine.
Hmm - "blindly track the FHS committee's arbitrary ideas" - that is
a strange way to phrase following a standard.
Not that unusual for a standard that changes arbitrarily every time they
meet and makes it difficult to use the otherwise well designed ability
of unix/linux to deal with different application and library paths for
different processes and users at the same time.
As far as having more then one version of an application installed
at a time, I can just picture the problems that would cause most
users.
It wouldn't be a requirement. And it would make Linux as difficult to
use as a Mac...
You can ignore the package manager all together, and install one
version in the /usr/local or /opt tree after compiling it yourself.
Of course, and I'd wager that virtually every developer does exactly
that for himself, building and testing multiple versions at the same
time for anything where it might make sense. And then they ignore the
reasons they had for doing that and package it so no one else can.
But, are you really recommending that everyone who wants current apps
and a stable kernel should install Centos and build all their apps from
source in /usr/local? Yes, it works, and yes I do some of that, but I
don't think for a second that it is the right answer to this problem.
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx
