After my announce of the RULE distro analyzer on this list I got a message from V. Shakan. I sent to him privately the answer below. It gout bounced by its email server twice because of "SMTP 552 disapproved content", of all things. Hence, since I have no other mean to reach him, and what we said is (I hope) of interest here anyway, I am answering on the list. Please accept my apologies for the waste of bandwidth. Vince, if you want to contact me again privately, do it, and we'll find a way to exchange direct messages ----- Forwarded message from "M. Fioretti" <m.fioretti@xxxxxxxxx> ----- Subject: Re: ANNOUNCE: the RULE distribution analyzer is online From: "M. Fioretti" <m.fioretti@xxxxxxxxx> Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2003 08:51:17 +0100 To: "Skahan, Vince" <vince.skahan@xxxxxxxxxx> Cc: io <m.fioretti@xxxxxxxxx> Reply-To: "M. Fioretti" <m.fioretti@xxxxxxxxx> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4i X-Bogosity: No, tests=bogofilter, spamicity=0.288458, version=0.9.1.2 Status: RO X-Status: A On Wed, Mar 05, 2003 12:22:54 at 12:22:54PM -0800, Skahan, Vince (vince.skahan@xxxxxxxxxx) wrote: > 1. one problem is that RPM lies about package size Yes, I know. Unfortunately, I don't really know how to fix this without actually installing the package and counting bytes, which goes against the "core mission" of the tool (ie knowing better RH packages before installing them). In other words, from my side this looks like an RPM bug which I can't fix myself, nor I should. > > 2. you're using bogus data... If you used 'real' data you'd have > more feedback Yes again. This is a chicken and egg problem. I am on dialup, so cannot download every other day all the ISOs around and do the maths. I was hoping, announcing DAn all around, that some bandwidth-blessed guy would come in and say "I have all the packages on my hard disk, how do we extract the info that you need?" (BTW, I have been contacted by the freshrpms maintainer: he seems willing to cooperate, and I have explained to him how to send me data for all his packages > > 3. I'd like to understand what the columns you return mean. > Those are for the RULE project: the first column explains what RH base packages are base also for RULE, the others are similar stuff > > Looks like very cool stuff! > It is indeed, if I can say it myself. All the other tools around, from up2date to apt to urpmi, etc.. go at the problem from the wrong angle. They are OK for people who have ALREADY installed the distribution, and say "all right, I want a calendar: since they force us to buy huge hard disks anyway, fill them with whatever crap those insane packagers declared as dependency, but install the calendar and don't bother me" At the same time, they are all totally useless, or at least *very* time consuming, when you want to evaluate alternatives: what do you do, for each of ten dvd players 1) install dvd player 1 and all its dependency 2) write down manually how much space went away 3) uninstall that player and all the packages that he pretended 4) Next player... Yes, something like this is long overdue, and (pardon me for a bit of profecy and ego trip) if the distribution packagers started using this systematically, their end products would be much better. Have I convinced you by now that this is the most important IT mission since when Linus released his first kernel, and that the fate of the Free World depends on you helping me with this program :-) ? Ciao, and thanks again for your compliments and feedback Marco Fioretti -- Marco Fioretti m.fioretti, at the server inwind.it Red Hat for low memory http://www.rule-project.org/en/ We have to pursue this subject of fun very seriously if we want to stay competitive in the 21st century. -George Yeo, Singapore's Minister of State for Finance. ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Marco Fioretti m.fioretti, at the server inwind.it Red Hat for low memory http://www.rule-project.org/en/ Life is what happens whilst you're busy making other plans (John Lennon)
