the 'which distro' question

[Net Llama!]

On Fri, 2 Mar 2007, Tony Alfrey wrote:
> Net Llama! wrote:
>> On Fri, 2 Mar 2007, Tony Alfrey wrote:
>
> <snip>
>>>  What do you think:  does Portage know rpm?
>>
>> No.  Just like RPM doesn't know DEBs and DEBs don't know RPM.  They're
>> packaging formats/systems, and they generally aren't aware of any other
>> format/system.
>>
>> If you really want to use RPMs, then you're going down a road of pain &
>> suffering by trying to use a distro which doesn't natively use RPMs for
>> its packages.
>>
>
> I did expect that might be the case.
> There's this thing called 'alien' that Debian puts out that I looked at
> for a few minutes on Google that supposedly lets one install rpms on
> debian-based boxes.  Do you have any experience with that?

Alien is a nice little tool for dealing with the occasional package that 
you want to convert from one format to the other, however its not really 
intended for mass package conversion.  If you have that many RPMs that you 
need in Debian format (or vice versa) then you are likely using the wrongt 
distro.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lonni J Friedman                        netllama at linux-sxs.org
LlamaLand				http://netllama.linux-sxs.org