Smartrpm was (Re: Fedora Core 4)

[Jeff Spaleta]

On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 17:06:52 -0200, Andreas Hasenack <andreas at conectiva.com.br> 
> They are less in size than what yum downloads, because the pkglist file
> used by apt doesn't have to list all files inside packages. 

You are talking about apt for rpm here or are you basing this on
experience of using apt with debian packages?  My understanding is
.deb packages don't have a native understanding of 'file dependancies'
where as .rpm packages do.  My understanding is dated to mid 2003
which was the last time i read up on the differences between the .deb
and .rpm packaging formats... so I might have an  out of date
understanding,
 
Once you have explicit file dependancies like "Requires
/sbin/ldconfig" in packages you have to make some effort to grab the
file lists to be able to resolve that sort of requirement.  How else
do you resolve file dependancies, if you don't have the per-package
file lists?

And I'm pretty sure the metadata structures yum is using now 2.1.x
don't download all the filelists unless an exotic file dependancy has
to be met. I'm pretty sure that commonly used filelist information
(things like (/usr)/(s)bin/* , /etc/* and /var/lib/*) is stored in the
primary.xml  metadata file.. while the full file lists (things like
/usr/share/docs/*) are kept in filelists.xml.

-jef