sorry for the inflammatory title, but the whole current state of RPM is a bit frustrating to me right now.

Who knows, maybe it's a problem with the distro (Mandrake 8.1).. I just installed 8.1 fresh, and then tried to install some stuff for python, specifically wxPython, from RPM. Well, it had failed dependencies, so I downloaded the RPMs to satisfy those, and _they_ had failed dependencies, so I downloaded _those_, and _they_ had failed dependencies, except this time the problem was a conflict with things that were already installed on my system by a newer package of a different type.

Example:
file /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/extensions/libglx.a from install of XFree86-OpenGL-core-4.1.0-8 conflicts with file from package XFree86-server-4.1.0-17mdk

At this point, with my limited knowledge, I'm at a dead-end. I want to use a package manager so it's easier to uninstall things later if I decide to, and I somehow doubt building from source is going to help me much regarding this.

I had this same problem with Mandrake 8.0, but I don't recall it from my old RH6.x and earlier (of course it may be that I wasn't trying to install as many different things). I've also had this same sort of problem with _many_ different packages (e.g. xine, oms, mplayer in the past 24 hours).

Soooo... here's my question, why does this happen? Is this due to the way people are building the packages (user error on the part of the package builder)? or is it due to an inherent weakness of the current package system? or would I have fewer problems if I went with the "standard" Redhat distro? or am I just making some simple luser mistakes?

but right now, it makes me want to say "RPM's SUCK!".. (I wish I had the skills to do something other than complain, but I don't even know where the problem lies!)

RPM's have thier advantages and disadvantages, but then again I don't use them. Mandrake (in my mind) is a great distro, but stabbed themselves in the foot by going RPM based. Not that it can't work, i've had fine successes with RPM's and Mandrake 7, but now all I use are gzip/bzip2 compressed files. Even though Slackware can handle RPMs, I think the tried and true compressions are the way to go. You woulddn't have to change distros just to do that. Just try downloading your source or files in .tar.gz or .bz2 format and see how those go, if no luck, I'd say Mandrake is brain farting. Make sure you have bzip2 utils before wasting time downloading though. Should have it with such a new distro though.

Slackware doesn't like RPMs. Use the --nodeps option. I put this in /etc/profile to make it easier:

alias rpm='/bin/rpm --nodeps'

The downside is that if you have an .rpm that actually does rely on dependencies you don't have (as opposed to merely lying about it like it usually does), you'll run into problems.

-Legion

With slackware you can do "rpm2tgz" and turn it into a slack package. But I much prefer to install from source, that way I get to compile for my march.