package management tests: Debian, Mandrake winners

[Toomas Karmo]

As I've just remarked to a person I know, who needs some help: 

((ESSENTIALLY-QUOTE)) 
Linux package management tools are of high importance for following two
reasons: 

(a) Only if our tools are simple to use can be assured that we will on
EACH business day check for security patches. (We cannot apply security
patches once a month, or once a week. Daily patching is a mission
requirement. But if the tools are hard to use, we will neglect daily
patching.) 

(b) Only if our tools are simple to use can we be assured that we will
be able to install mildly out-of-the-way end-user apps. (Two examples of
such apps: (i) Plain-ASCII
Web browsier "links", superior to the traditional
plain-ASCII browser 
lynx in understanding frames. (ii) "antiword", as a tool
for converting a Microsoft Word file into plain ASCII, and sending that
plain ASCII to standard output.) 
((/ESSENTIALLY-QUOTE)) 

This same 
person has just drawn my attention to a Mandrake newsletter which
itself refers to http://lwn.net/Articles/49967/. The
http://lwn.net/Articles/49967/ article is a report on tests of package
management in Debian, Mandrake, RedHat, Slackware, and SuSE. 
The winner is Debian. Mandrake comes in second. 

Rapidly, 

Tom = Tom Karmo
http://www.metascientia.com 
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