[1703] in SIPB_Linux_Development
Re: Redhat 4.2/Linux-Athena
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Theodore Y. Ts'o)
Wed Jun 4 18:34:00 1997
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 1997 18:32:41 -0400
From: "Theodore Y. Ts'o" <tytso@MIT.EDU>
To: Derek Atkins <warlord@MIT.EDU>
Cc: "Theodore Y. Ts'o" <tytso@MIT.EDU>, Erik Nygren <nygren@MIT.EDU>,
Chris Murphy <chris@MIT.EDU>, linux-dev@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Derek Atkins's message of 04 Jun 1997 15:14:53 -0400,
<sjmraeikwnm.fsf@charon.MIT.EDU>
From: Derek Atkins <warlord@MIT.EDU>
Date: 04 Jun 1997 15:14:53 -0400
The next question is the installation mechanism. The installation
mechanism assumes network connectivity (how else could you NFS-mount
small-gods?). Since we're already assuming network connectivity, then
it's safe to assume that we can start with an SRVD and then copy files
local as needed.
Derek, you're assuming everyone uses your special installation
mechanism. I've got news for you --- some people don't.
Some people install the stock Redhat 4.x system over CD-ROM (which will
be just a _tad_ faster than pulling 191 megabytes over a 28.8 PPP link),
and then install the 14 or so Athena RPM's on their machine. Even if
that's not a model that you explicitly support today, I think it's one
we should start supporting --- because IMO it's useful to a non-trivial
segment of the community.
Basically, Ted, RPM and the redhat installation doesn't deal well with
having multiple RPMS that contain the same filenames where each
instance of the file is different. In other words, you can't have two
RPMS which both contain /usr/athena/bin/kinit, where in one RPM its a
file and the other its a symlink. You'll get an error if you try to
install both RPMs.
Doctor, Doctor, it hurts when I do that....
I'm not really in favor of using RPM's to install symlinks. If you want
to dream up some new system for delivering a srvd, fine.
If you really want to install the /srvd symlinks via an RPM, RPM has a
feature where you can make a package have an "anti-prerequisite" --- the
package will only be installed if the other package *isn't* installed.
Hence, you could have kerberos RPM, and a kerberos-symlink RPM, and RPM
will enforce that either one or the other RPM will be installed.
Another problem with the current system is that every file in the SRVD
has to be in some Athena package. Currently, this isn't the case.
That means that users aren't even installing all the programs that are
built. For example, did you know that enscript was built for Linux?
I bet it isn't on your machine....
Again, I'm not asking for an RPM-only solution. I just think that
having stand-alone RPM files would be a good thing. And I'm willing to
help make sure that's a reality. If it's done right, it really
shouldn't be hard.....
- Ted
