LWN: Comments on "RPM 'relaunched' at rpm5.org (Linux.com)"

RPM 'relaunched' at rpm5.org (Linux.com)

xorbe — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 16:25:06 +0000

How many times is this going to be reposted? At least 3 times so far...

RPM 'relaunched' at rpm5.org (Linux.com)

hppnq — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 21:57:41 +0000

Linux has had support for threads for ages. Actually the quote is correct: in 2002 Red Hat developed a new threads library, called the Native POSIX Thread Library, or NTPL, and used it in their, well, ground-breaking Red Hat 9 release. Broke lots of other stuff as well. ;-)

So it does make a lot of sense that rpm was among the first projects to make use of NTPL. This was of course covered here at LWN.

RPM 'relaunched' at rpm5.org (Linux.com)

pli — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 13:18:57 +0000

>> Native POSIX Thread Library

> NPTL is not the same as LinuxThreads,

No one is claiming they are the same.

> and it was first introduced not so long ago...

Well, all modern distributions have had NPTL included for more than 3 years now.

RPM 'relaunched' at rpm5.org (Linux.com)

sim0nx — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 19:37:36 +0000

> Native POSIX Thread Library

NPTL is not the same as LinuxThreads, and it was first introduced not so long ago...
But still rpm5 is certainly not one of the first applications to make use of NPTL...

RPM 'relaunched' at rpm5.org (Linux.com)

pli — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 18:07:55 +0000

>> RPM is also, he notes, one of the first projects to use the Native POSIX Thread Library in Linux.

> Wtf? ISC BIND used threads even before the idea of rpm5 came up.

I'm sure this is just a simple misquote or misunderstanding of some sort. Claiming that rpm is the first project to use threads on Linux is of course nonsense. Maybe he just meant it's the first package manager on Linux to use threads or something.

RPM 'relaunched' at rpm5.org (Linux.com)

jengelh — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 08:23:01 +0000

rpm5 sounds totally wraptastic.

>Support is in place for more complex dependency checks, such as negated dependencies (in which a package is dependent on the absence of another)

Uhm, rpm4 had that for ages (and perhaps even earlier versions), it's the "Conflict:" tag in .spec files. Multilib is, well, currently handled at the package name level ("libcurl2", "libcurl3", etc). Multiplatform is also supported in (at least opensuse's) rpm4. "rpm -e foobar.i586" and "rpm -e foobar.x86_64", the other way is of course "rpm -ihv foobar.i586.rpm; rpm -ihv foobar.x86_64.rpm" should you need it.

>RPM is also, he notes, one of the first projects to use the Native POSIX Thread Library in Linux.

Wtf? ISC BIND used threads even before the idea of rpm5 came up.

RPM 'relaunched' at rpm5.org (Linux.com)

bluegecko — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 06:26:38 +0000

Why exactly do we need yet another package system, even if it is derived from an existing one?
Current systems (.deb and .rpm) do pretty much what 95% of users actually need.