Re: package managers [was: FatELF patches...]

[Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>]

> - With Linux package managers, the user is stuck with the software and 
>   version shipped by the distribution. If he wants to install anything 
>   newer or older, it turns into black magic and the typical desktop user 
>   (non-hacker) can't do it.

In the rpm/yumworld that would be "yum downgrade" and "yum upgrade" for
packages or whatever button on whatever gui wrapper you happen to have.

And of course yum supports third party repositories so you can also deal
with the updating problem which Windows tends not to do well for third
party software.

Installing it is the easy bit, keeping it current and secure is the fun
bit.

All pretty routine stuff and a lot of users add other repositories
themselves: generally by having a package that adds the repository, so
you just have one package to click on in a web browser and open, then off
it all goes.