RPM / Debian ?

[weasel fierce]

Can someone share some basic info on what the difference is between RPM and Debian, in the way they work and interact with your system and you ?

Also, what is "RPM hell" ? :) I hear it all the time, but havent quite figured out exactly why RPM is so frustrating, as I only have experience with Deb

[jasmuz]

Rpm Hell is a dependancy hell in wich you are the responsible of finding, getting and installing the dependancies for any package.

[BWF89]

I heard that the so called "RPM/Dependency hell" was just FUD generated by Debian zealots.

[codejunkie]

Can someone share some basic info on what the difference is between RPM and Debian, in the way they work and interact with your system and you ?

Also, what is "RPM hell" ? :) I hear it all the time, but haven't quite figured out exactly why RPM is so frustrating, as I only have experience with Deb

In theory RPM is a package type used by a lot of distros like suse, fedora etc
that you just double click on and it installs.
and .deb package is used by distros like ubuntu/kubuntu, xandros,mepis etc
with a .deb package you download you have to use the command line to install with dpkg -i nameof.deb and it installs that package and required dependencies with minimal effort.

with most RPM based distros like suse you double click on the RPM file to start the install process and you are greeted with a message saying this package cannot be installed because you dont have one or more required dependicies installed, so you have to download the packages that provide those dependicies, and double click on them and you are greeted with a message saying this package cannot be installed because you dont have one or more required dependicies installed, again so you download those packages that provide those dependicies and start the install and are greeted with a message stating this package cannot be installed because you dont have one or more required dependicies installed. this my friend is rpm hell and with some newer programs it can take hours or days to track down dependiceis and install one program.

[NeoChaosX]

Well, "RPM hell" isn't exclusive to RPM based distros. "deb hell" can happen if you install individual debs with dpkg like you do with RPMs. debs still have their dependencies that will be demanded to be downloaded if you're installing through dpkg.

debs just seem better because most Debian users install their packages from apt-get, which automates the dependency-finding process for users. RPMs also have their apt-get-like utilities, like urpmi in Mandr(ake/iva), YaST in SUSE, and Yum in Fedora.

[dataw0lf]

debs just seem better because most Debian users install their packages from apt-get, which automates the dependency-finding process for users. RPMs also have their apt-get-like utilities, like urpmi in Mandr(ake/iva), YaST in SUSE, and Yum in Fedora.

This isn't true. A big difference between the two systems is that rpm often uses files for dependencies, rather than a virtual package or something similar. As well, the various deb policies are much more strict and standard (http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/), I've seen alot of rather messy rpms; debs are, as a rule, much cleaner (this is also a reflection of the amount of work that goes into Debian packages versus RPM packages). And, of course, deb packages are a standard ar file, easily opened on just about any system. RPMs are in a modified cpio format.

I administer RHEL servers, FC servers, and Debian servers, for both my '9-5' job and contracts/consulting, and I've had much more trouble with dependencies involving rpms versus debs. This isn't just a 'you know Debian better' situation, either; I'm RHCE certified, and have worked professionally with RH for quite a while. I think the old days of true 'RPM hell' are behind us, but deb, overall, is still better.

My $0.02.

[poofyhairguy]

Can someone share some basic info on what the difference is between RPM and Debian, in the way they work and interact with your system and you ?

They are the same basically. Just package formats. The difference is the size of the RPM or Deb repo you get things from. The biggest RPM repo is Mandrake ( I hear it has over 9000 packages) while Ubuntu has over 15000 with the universe enabled.

Also, what is "RPM hell" ? :) I hear it all the time, but havent quite figured out exactly why RPM is so frustrating, as I only have experience with Deb

RPM hell exists because none of the RPM distros has a big enough central repository that can rival the depth of debian (and Ubuntu).

I tried Fedora before Ubuntu for a few months, so I met RPM hell myself. In Fedora, many of the packages I want are not in the official repo, but they are in many, many third party repos. Things like gtkpod and synaptic.

I would try to use yum and RPM apt-get to get these things, but even after adjusting Yum to install from every one of the main third party distros I could only touch a maximum of 5000 packages.

In order to get things I wanted, I had to search here:

http://rpm.pbone.net/

I would download the RPM from there and install it manually. But when I tried to do that the RPM I wanted it would say "this depends on this pacakge." So I would have to download that package and install it. But sometimes that pacakge would need a package, and so sometimes I would have to install over 10 RPMs by hand sometimes to get the software I need.

RPM hell has nothing to do with the format, it has to do with the fact that the depth of the major repos for the RPM distros suck (in comparison to gentoo, debian and Ubuntu). Yum gets rid of RPM hell, but it can only do its job when you can find the program you want in the main repo (or a big third party one).


Bittornado was a big one that was such a bitch to install in Fedora that it sent me to Ubuntu because I knew it was in the universe. Ubuntu really lacks debian hell because we don't have hundreds of deb repos. We have only a few third party repos (backports being the biggest by a mile)...so you aren't using deb search engines to get what you really want. Yeah for Debian allowing Ubuntu to fork its Sid repo...the biggest in the land (except maybe gentoo).