rpm2tgz vs rpm
 

Hi,

I'm reading this fantastic forum for quite some time and finally decided to join the community since I was not able to find an answer to this question:
from time to time it happens that I need to install a package that is only available as a rpm package. This leaves me with two options:

# rpm --nodeps -i package.rpm

and

# rpm2tgz package.rpm && installpkg package.tgz

Which method should be preferred?

Second one is more easily reverted by doing removepkg package.tgz
It depends on the package really, some of them you can just extract into /opt or /usr/local and they will just work.
Others not so much.

Thanks, but is that really that much easier than rpm -e package ?

Yes well, there's a "-" in that command which does not autocomplete.
In /var/log/packages one could do removepkg pack<tab> and hit return, so yeah, I guess.

Yes, as you would only use one package manager to keep track of your packages.
If you have some packages installed with pkgtools and some with rpm, you would have to keep track of which needs what package manager.

Also, if 2 packages have the same library, pkgtools only removes said library when you remove the last package that installs it... unless the other package was installed with rpm... see the problem?

All right, that makes sense. Thanks