[Novalug] Redhat rpm, was Re: Is Cox blocking bittorrent?

Maxwell Spangler maxpublic08@maxwellspangler.com
Wed Feb 4 19:43:48 EST 2009


On Wed, 2009-02-04 at 09:17 -0600, Eric Dantan Rzewnicki wrote:

> I didn't know when Red Hat started and when they first released rpm, so
> I asked the universal omniscient oracle:
> 
> "RPM was originally written in 1997 by Erik Troan and Marc Ewing for use
> in the Red Hat Linux distribution." <http://rpm5.org/pressrelease.php>
> Red Hat the distro was first released in 1994. Red Hat the company was
> founded in 1995. I can't immediately find what they used for package
> format and management before 1997.
> 
> Debian celebrated it's 15th aniversary in August 2008. The project
> launch was announced Aug 16, 1993. "man deb" says the current deb format
> has been in use since Debian 0.93 and Debian 0.93 Release 5 happened in
> March 1995.

Your post made me curious so I went looking.

Redhat started in 1994 and produced over the next year and half or so
versions of Redhat Linux that were probably alpha and beta quality.  In
1995 they produced Redhat 2.x series which included a perl based rpm
system.  In 1996 they released Redhat 3.0.3 (Picasso) which included the
C based rpm that is the basis of RPM today.

Redhat 3.0.3 released in 1996 was the first version of Linux that I felt
comfortable enough to install and take seriously.  Until then, I'd
install Linux and play with it until the next version of yet another
distribution was made available.. 3 months later.  It was Slackware via
Walnut Creek CDROMs every season before that and everything felt very
immature.  Looks good, but not good enough yet. RH 3.0.3 felt good
enough to try using.  So that's thirteen years I've been using Redhat
Linux :)

Along the way I did try others.  Debian got an early reputation as
sticking to free software ideals and the purists trusted it because it
wasn't in any way mislead by corporate interests.  Even back then it was
starting to get attention for its superior package system but it was
also getting well known for a very non-user-friendly installation
program.  I tried it once and gave up.  There simply wasn't any reason
to fight with one distribution when another could satisfy you.

If you are a fan of Debian based systems today and wonder why more
people aren't using them, specially why people choose Redhat systems,
its because Redhat has been working on its distributions for a very long
time.  Longer than Mandrake, Ubuntu, and so many others.  They've earned
a lot of trust with users like me.  I'd say its fair to say that while
Debian's been winning in packaging, Redhat's been winning in
installation and graphical tools.  With Fedora, they got very good and
bringing new technologies into Linux as fast if not faster than everyone
else.

I'm happy, very happy, that there is still room for us all to have our
different favorites and plenty of choice.  I'd like to see basically the
same for another 10 and 20 years..


-- 
Maxwell Spangler
Research Triangle Park, NC, USA





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