Package Management - technical comparisons

[Gerard Beekmans]

The more we discuss it, the more PM becomes a focal point. I agree with 
Greg Schafer in that the actual choice of PM is a user's choice in the 
end and shouldn't matter.

About all we should attempt to do is inform the user of all the main 
stream and (perhaps) some of the not-so-mainstream options out there.

We need a clearly defined list of pros, cons and technical explanations 
plus their limitations of each viable choice - all the information that 
a user needs to make an informed decision while keeping in mind that 
some of these programs may never have been used (or heard of) before. So 
we can't assume a basic working understanding of the programs.

Having said that, we will probably get to a scenario where we need to 
settle on something we will be using ourselves for the LFS project. For 
instance, the LFS server itself will eventually be outfitted with one of 
the results of this process. This wouldn't be an endorsement, but will 
probably be perceived as such - "if the LFS developers use 
implementation X on the LFS server and to develop the LFS project itself 
with, then I should probably use it as well."

One could consider embarking on a mission to make all the PM options 
talk to each other so you can mix and match what PM you use at any given 
time - you can switch from deb to rpm to something else on the same 
system on-the-fly. That would be an interesting challenge in itself.

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I don't think any one person can provide this kind of information. We 
tend to specialize in our favourites  at the cost of knowing the ins and 
outs of other alternatives.

Alexander started a thread about an RPM Proof Of Concept. I quickly 
glanced at it and it seems an installation HOWTO, not including the 
information I mentioned above that we need more than the installation 
itself right now.

If you feel you can talk about a potential PM candidate for LFS, please 
write up a document that outlines the following:

- it's strengths and weaknesses
- why it's better than other candidates
- why it's worse than other candidates
- what it takes to integrate it in the LFS book
   * not looking for installation instructions. Just explain the impact 
and changes that will be required     for successful use
- what it likely is not able to do for its users
- how well it can deal with matters such as conflict resolution and 
dependency handling


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When all this information is collected, we can discuss (no point in 
doing this prematurely) how to move forward - namely how to redo the LFS 
book (or actually move away from having it be a book form). That's a 
discussion for much later. Let's get the individual components more 
clearly documented. Then we can discuss later how to pull it together 
once we know what we're dealing with.

Gerard