[KLUG Members] FreshRPMS is starting to provide what RedHat doesn't ...

[Bryan J. Smith]

On Mon, 2002-05-06 at 21:20, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> Regardless, if RedHat was _serious_ about addressing this, in addition
> to creating an "apt-rpm" for its own, official packages (which it
> basically has via the RedHat Network now), they would help create an
> independent archive for downloading adding 3rd party packages too.  In
> fact, if RedHat did this, they could finally take a "we are the RPM
> standard" leadership role in establishing apt in the RPM-based world via
> this 3rd party archive.
> As of right now, rpmfind.net doesn't exactly cut it (even though there
> _is_ a semi-equivalent to apt for rpmfind.net now), and the guidelines
> in LSB still don't match up to what the Debian Guidelines already
> provide.

With every RedHat release, I mix in all updates, Ximian Gnome and
various packages (usually multimedia, browser plug-ins, etc...) into one
big NFS install.  Many times I'm scavaging and rebuilding my own RPMs
from SRPMS, even tarball once or twice now (with the help of automated
RPM SPEC file generators).  I often find myself longing for that
distributed repository of pre-packaged applications like Debian has with
full Apt service.  Ximian has done a great job of trying to do this
(e.g., StarOffice and other channels), but it's obviously built around a
selective set of packages for its RedCarpet service.

Well some of the guys out at FreshRPMs are basically doing just this.

The archive of 3rd party applications are small, but its growing.  I'm
just glad to see the majority of RPMs I used to build manually in it --
which saves me a lot of time.  And there are several sites for Apt-RPM
access -- not just for 3rd party applications, but RedHat updates as
well.  All-in-all I'm glad some people are addressing this as it makes
my life easier.  I'm thinking of contributing a few SPEC/SRPMS of my own
when I get time.

RedHat users ... check it out baby!
   http://freshrpms.net/

-- Bryan

-- 
The US government could be 100x more effective, and 1/100th the
Constitutional worry, if it dictated its policy to Microsoft as
THE MAJOR CUSTOMER it is, and not THE REGULATOR it fails to be.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Bryan J. Smith, SmithConcepts, Inc.   mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org
Engineers and IT Professionals     http://www.SmithConcepts.com