OT: Gentoo, Red Hat, etc. (was Re: [Mimedefang] Latest MIME-Tools)

[Justin]

On Mon, 22 Mar 2004, Kelson Vibber wrote:

> I don't think it's a failing of RPM so much as it's a failing of package 
> managers in general - namely, if you install anything that the PM doesn't 
> know about, it acts as if it isn't there.  The only way you can get around 
> that is if you can override the PM and tell it, "Look, Perl's really 
> installed.  I know I can't tell you in detail where all the files are, or 
> what libraries and utilities it depends on, but it's installed, honest!"

See I was thinking Portage could do just this.  Note however that I
haven't yet gotten a chance to try it, but I'm getting closer.  Perhaps it
would be better to build a system that maintains a detail file on what the
package manage expects to find (or has to find) to be able to say that
yes, Package A is actually installed so I can add it to my internal DB.  
That way even if you download and compile by hand you could tell your
package manager that Package A is really installed and the package manager
could use the detail file to confirm that.  It's a possibility.  This way 
the detail file is distributed in portage and portage has a chance to 
confirm that the package is installed rather than taking our word for it.

Hmm...  interesting...
 Justin