fedora has some disadvantages, crappy default themes (not that big deal) and also crappy package management tool (big deal ;=) )
that causes much problems. You maybe get somewhere a rpm, install it it says all dependecies are there, then it does not work anyway and you have no clew why. In debian/derevats, you have from your distribution very good quality debs with hard accurate dependencies, and they have the goal to give their users all whats out there at least the importent stuff. And that makes sence because the same people who updates the depencies can also recompile and give you the stuff that depends on it. That seems to produce higher quality packages.
So the package dependency system is better because you can not mix incompatible packages that depend on each other.
So the package dependency system is better because you can not mix incompatible packages that depend on each other.
Let me disagree with you...!
1) RPM and DEB are just package format / archive. Both provides same dependencies with one exception - RPM allows file dependencies, where it is profitable.
2) What really differs are basic package management tools RPM and DPKG.
Nowadays RPM have features DPKG never had - for example integrity checksums of each packages (must-have for security).
In addition RPM has better syntax. Look at those dpkg-query commands! They are really ugly! In addition some of the queries present in RPM are non existent in DPKG world - for example "rpm -qa --last"
3) High level packaging tools also differs a lot in DPKG and RPM worlds:
If dpkg syntax is just ugly, APT syntax is completely idiotic. Lets have a look at it... There is no tool APT in fact. APT means a set of tools like apt-get, apt-cache, ...etc. You install package using APT-GET install command. You refresh package lists (package cache) using APT-GET update, but if you seach package you use APT-CACHE search! Why it is not APT-GET seach? Where is some logic? I see only chaos here!
And that is not all! Why the APT use command UPDATE, when it just REFRESH the cache? Why the APT use command UPGRADE, when it simply UPDATE the packages? After all, APT mix package updates and upgrades into one mess called UPGRADE.
When it comes to dependency resolvers, APT is the worst possible tool. Using heuristic analysis with treating upgrades as the only solution, you can not find worse dependency resolver in the linux world. It may work in the Debian world, where only one huge (and really well prepared) repository exists, and there is no need for real dependency resolution! In the worst scenarios, average Debian user mix stable,testing and unstable repos, where all the packages are in all repositories. So it is quite simple even for such useless tool like APT to manage them. The fact it works great is not proof of qualities and performance of Debian package management system, but proof of a great job done by hundred of Debian package maintainers. It would work same way If Debian used RPM and YUM. It has nothing to do with package format, package tool or dependency resolver.
Just switch to Ubuntu, and everything of Debian package management system grows wrong. Ubuntu still mirrors Debian repositories, but it use many PPAs too. Thus user usually mix many (sometimes incompatible) repositories and thus it faces same problems you described as RPM specific. Unlike in Opensuse of Fedora, Debian package management system lacks really powerful dependency resolver (except universal SMART package manager), and Ubuntu is the easiest distro to mess dependendies so much, that dependency resolver can not find solution even if it exists and is simple. Why? Because Debian package management system is not designed for solving complicated problems! That is really wrong for user, because solving dependencies manually is not an easy job. Trust me, I broke Ubuntu installation easily many times and APT or Aptitude were useless even when manual solution was easy and obvious!
What else we have here? Look at RPM-MD repository description and compare it to APTs sources.list. RPM-MD repository format allows you wide range of configuration for each repository, when APT sources.list contain only single line with address and any repository settings are put somewhere else or sometimes worked around defining rules for all packages in target repository. Just like my previous point, again you can see Debian is designed for single repository solution.
In this post I only criticized the DPKG/DEB just to create the opposite view to yours and to show DPKG/DEB has many problems and weaknesses too. I do not say, Debian package management is so bad. But it is obvious it is not the best and it is definitely not better than RPM! At least it is different and designed for different needs. RPM and DPKG both have some strengths and weaknesses.
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