FAQ: atrpms package (was: Package update failure)

[Axel Thimm]

On Tue, Feb 03, 2004 at 09:31:00AM +0100, antonio montagnani wrote:
> Why do many packages (about 50 on my system) require atrpms?? for 
> example autoconf, openjade, expat (all with extension at) or 
> xawtv....this means that atrps cannot be disinstalled: it is not a 
> probel but a curiosity!!!

It's probably an FAQ ;)

In ancient times, when there was fear that upgrading RH 7.2 to the
next version could leave traces of 3rd party rpms for RH 7.2 around,
atrpms was a convenient way to identify all packages from
ATrpms. E.g. rpm -e atrpms owuld identify all packages.

atrpms got real contents since, like GPG keys of major repositories,
perl helper scripts and kernel module helper scripts. It also got to
carry the apt and yum configs, that were split off the apt and yum
packages. The latter found some people in disagreement, and during
Xmas time I concurred, and split it out into another package (what the
Xmas spirit does to us ;).

Since the first instance of atrpms better methods (signing, using rpm
tags) for identifying packages have been used, and the "new" resolvers
like apt, yum and friends can upgrade the 3rd party rpms to the next
distribution, w/o manual intervention. Therefore the explicit atrpms
dependency was dropped.

Older packages still have this (harmless) atrpms dependency, newer
ones do not, unless they explicitly require sub-components of atrpms
(e.g. the perl and kmdl helpers).
-- 
Axel.Thimm at physik.fu-berlin.de
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