Downloading RPMs one-by-one (Re: [Techtalk] Installing Mandrake and having problems with Debian!)

[Mary]

On Thu, Jun 05, 2003, Sara wrote:
> Incidentally, I found out that it comes with ACPI, so for the first
> time, I could see how my battery was doing :). That was nice, but
> anyway, after 3 weeks running Debian, I don't feel like going back to
> Mandrake: it's so nice the "apt-get" compared to downloading rpms
> ;)... 

Mandrake has an apt-get like program called urpmi, and a unstable
package repository called cooker which is much like Debian unstable.

The "apt-get advantage" is no longer the reason to use Debian - most
distros have a tool that can download packages and resolve their
dependencies. apt-get now also has a version that uses RPM, not deb
packages.

I use Debian for the upgrade paths, the huge number of packages, and
mainly because of inertia (I'll need to hear something seriously cool
about another distro to make a permanent switch - no, I'm not interested
in compiling everything on a PIII, so I don't use Gentoo, thanks :) ).
I've used Red Hat on university workstations for a while now too.

But people who are still downloading every RPM they need one by one and
cursing when they discover yet another new dependency should at least be
aware of the alternatives like urpmi, up2date and apt-get for RPM, and
the unstable versions of distros like Red Hat's rawhide and Mandrake's
cooker.

-Mary