What Fedora makes sucking for me - or why I am NOT Fedora

[Kevin Kofler]

Les Mikesell wrote:
> Anyone who _wants_ todays bugs from upstream can always grab their
> tarball and build it under /usr/local/ with the big advantage of having
> a way back when they find it doesn't quite work.

Uh, what way back? A non-RPM package is almost impossible to uninstall
cleanly, at least as soon as you have more than one package in /usr/local.
Moreover, they may also write stuff to /usr, for example for menu entries
or other system integration tasks. (Or if they don't do that, they often
lack the system integration they'd have when installed to /usr.) Programs
are not isolated pieces. Tracking what they install where is what packages
are for. Some programs support "make uninstall", but most either don't
support it at all or never test it and leave it in various stages of
brokenness. And in any case it only works if you still have the exact
configured build directory you used to install the package.

It's much easier to rpm -Uvh --oldpackage to an older version than to get
rid of some custom-installed version.

        Kevin Kofler