Differences between version 3 and previous revision of Package.
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| Newer page: | version 3 | Last edited on Thursday, September 25, 2003 3:25:55 am | by AristotlePagaltzis | Revert |
| Older page: | version 2 | Last edited on Tuesday, September 23, 2003 5:36:33 am | by AristotlePagaltzis | Revert |
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
-An archive containing a piece of software (be that in binary or source form) as well as MetaData about that software which enables the PackageManagementTool to fulfill its PackageManagement duties
. This includes
a human readable description of the packaged software, and in
nearly all [Package] formats also
a list of architectures it
will run and a list of dependencies, ie
other [Package]s that
are required in order for the software in this one to run correctly. Many formats also have provisions for storing a maintainer contact, a checksum and/or a cryptographic signature of the [Package], its license, and more.
+An archive containing a piece of software (be that in binary or source form) as well as MetaData about that software. This is at least
a human readable description of the packaged software. In
nearly all [Package] formats it
also extends to
a list of architectures the particular [Package]
will run on,
and a list of other [Package]s are required in order for the software in this one to run correctly. These are called dependencies
. Many [Package]
formats also have provisions for storing a maintainer contact, a checksum and/or a cryptographic signature of the [Package], its license, and more. Together, these pieces enable the PackageManagementTool to fulfill its PackageManagement duties
.
The two most common formats are [RPM] (invented by RedHat and used by most [LinuxDistribution]s) and [Deb] (designed for [Debian]; obviously also used by [Debian]-derived [LinuxDistribution]s).
-[Slackware] has the simplest a [Package] format: almost plain [TarBall]s of the installed software, the MetaData simply consisting of a file with a description of the package and a postinstall script. There is no information about dependencies. This is not necessarily a drawback; on simple setups, the fact that no (corruptible) DataBase of installed [Package]s needs maintaining can be desirable.
+[Slackware] has the simplest a [Package] format: almost plain [TarBall]s of the installed software, the MetaData simply consisting of a file with a description of the package and a postinstall script. There is no information about dependencies. This is not necessarily a drawback; on simple setups (such as many dedicated servers use)
, the fact that no (corruptible) DataBase of installed [Package]s needs maintaining can be desirable.
A link to a comparison of [Package] formats AsSeenOnSlashdot: http://www.kitenet.net/~joey/pkg-comp/
