I have decided to give SMART a chance on my openSUSE machine. YaST has been working fine, it is just remarkably slow when it first starts up. It has to load all the dependencies, foreign package source info files, etc, and can take three or four minutes to start up. I suppose I should follow my usual maxim and not try to fix something that isn't broken, because beside the slow start up time, I haven't been able to break YaST, and I'm usually pretty good at breaking application installers. So to complain about a 3 minute startup delay seems to be looking a gift horse in the mouth.
So that makes three package managers available with openSUSE - YaST is the standard one, ZMD is the new "corporate" one and SMART is the third party "better faster smaller" one. Zmd is the ZENworks Management Daemon, introduced as the default installer in 10.1, much to the chagrin of many. It remained the default in 10.2 but it seems in the latest news for 10.3, ZMD will be dropped in favor of getting YaST working better.
At its core, openSUSE uses RPMs as its packages, and these other things are just nice front ends to the remarkably complex flexible RPM command:
$ rpm --help
Usage: rpm [OPTION...]
Query options (with -q or --query):
-c, --configfiles list all configuration files
-d, --docfiles list all documentation files
--dump dump basic file information
-l, --list list files in package
-P, --patches list patches or patched files
--queryformat=QUERYFORMAT use the following query format
-s, --state display the states of the listed files
-a, --all query/verify all packages
-f, --file query/verify package(s) owning file
-g, --group query/verify package(s) in group
-p, --package query/verify a package file
-W, --ftswalk query/verify package(s) from TOP file tree
walk
--pkgid query/verify package(s) with package
identifier
--hdrid query/verify package(s) with header
identifier
--fileid query/verify package(s) with file identifier
--specfile query a spec file
--triggeredby query the package(s) triggered by the
package
--whatrequires query/verify the package(s) which require a
dependency
--whatprovides query/verify the package(s) which provide a
dependency
--nomanifest do not process non-package files as
manifests
Verify options (with -V or --verify):
--nomd5 don't verify MD5 digest of files
--nofiles don't verify files in package
--nodeps don't verify package dependencies
--noscript don't execute verify script(s)
-a, --all query/verify all packages
-f, --file query/verify package(s) owning file
-g, --group query/verify package(s) in group
-p, --package query/verify a package file
-W, --ftswalk query/verify package(s) from TOP file tree
walk
--pkgid query/verify package(s) with package
identifier
--hdrid query/verify package(s) with header
identifier
--fileid query/verify package(s) with file identifier
--specfile query a spec file
--triggeredby query the package(s) triggered by the
package
--whatrequires query/verify the package(s) which require a
dependency
--whatprovides query/verify the package(s) which provide a
dependency
--nomanifest do not process non-package files as
manifests
File tree walk options (with --ftswalk):
--comfollow FTS_COMFOLLOW: follow command line symlinks
--logical FTS_LOGICAL: logical walk
--nochdir FTS_NOCHDIR: don't change directories
--nostat FTS_NOSTAT: don't get stat info
--physical FTS_PHYSICAL: physical walk
--seedot FTS_SEEDOT: return dot and dot-dot
--xdev FTS_XDEV: don't cross devices
--whiteout FTS_WHITEOUT: return whiteout information
Signature options:
--addsign sign package(s) (identical to --resign)
-K, --checksig verify package signature(s)
--delsign delete package signatures
--import import an armored public key
--resign sign package(s) (identical to --addsign)
--nodigest don't verify package digest(s)
--nosignature don't verify package signature(s)
Database options:
--initdb initialize database
--rebuilddb rebuild database inverted lists from
installed package headers
Install/Upgrade/Erase options:
--aid add suggested packages to transaction
--allfiles install all files, even configurations
which might otherwise be skipped
--allmatches remove all packages which match <package>
(normally an error is generated if
<package> specified multiple packages)
--badreloc relocate files in non-relocatable package
-e, --erase=<package>+ erase (uninstall) package
--excludedocs do not install documentation
--excludepath=<path> skip files with leading component <path>
--fileconflicts detect file conflicts between packages
--force short hand for --replacepkgs --replacefiles
-F, --freshen=<packagefile>+ upgrade package(s) if already installed
-h, --hash print hash marks as package installs (good
with -v)
--ignorearch don't verify package architecture
--ignoreos don't verify package operating system
--ignoresize don't check disk space before installing
-i, --install install package(s)
--justdb update the database, but do not modify the
filesystem
--nodeps do not verify package dependencies
--nomd5 don't verify MD5 digest of files
--nocontexts don't install file security contexts
--noorder do not reorder package installation to
satisfy dependencies
--nosuggest do not suggest missing dependency
resolution(s)
--noscripts do not execute package scriptlet(s)
--notriggers do not execute any scriptlet(s) triggered
by this package
--oldpackage upgrade to an old version of the package
(--force on upgrades does this
automatically)
--percent print percentages as package installs
--prefix=<dir> relocate the package to <dir>, if
relocatable
--relocate=<old>=<new> relocate files from path <old> to <new>
--repackage save erased package files by repackaging
--replacefiles ignore file conflicts between packages
--replacepkgs reinstall if the package is already present
--test don't install, but tell if it would work or
not
-U, --upgrade=<packagefile>+ upgrade package(s)
Common options for all rpm modes and executables:
-D, --define='MACRO EXPR' define MACRO with value EXPR
-E, --eval='EXPR' print macro expansion of EXPR
--macros=<FILE:...> read <FILE:...> instead of default file(s)
--nodigest don't verify package digest(s)
--nosignature don't verify package signature(s)
--rcfile=<FILE:...> read <FILE:...> instead of default file(s)
-r, --root=ROOT use ROOT as top level directory (default:
"/")
--querytags display known query tags
--showrc display final rpmrc and macro configuration
--quiet provide less detailed output
-v, --verbose provide more detailed output
--version print the version of rpm being used
Options implemented via popt alias/exec:
--scripts list install/erase scriptlets from
package(s)
--setperms set permissions of files in a package
--setugids set user/group ownership of files in a
package
--conflicts list capabilities this package conflicts
with
--obsoletes list other packages removed by installing
this package
--provides list capabilities that this package provides
--requires list capabilities required by package(s)
--suggests list capabilities this package suggests
--recommends list capabilities this package recommends
--enhances list capabilities this package enhances
--supplements list capabilities this package supplements
--basedon list packages this patch-rpm is based on
--info list descriptive information from package(s)
--changelog list change logs for this package
--xml list metadata in xml
--triggers list trigger scriptlets from package(s)
--last list package(s) by install time, most
recent first
--filesbypkg list all files from each package
--fileclass list file names with classes
--filecolor list file names with colors
--filecontext list file names with security context from
header
--fscontext list file names with security context from
file system
--recontext list file names with security context from
policy RE
--fileprovide list file names with provides
--filerequire list file names with requires
--fileclass list file names with classes
--filecolor list file names with colors
--buildpolicy=<policy> set buildroot <policy> (e.g. compress man
pages)
--with=<option> enable configure <option> for build
--without=<option> disable configure <option> for build
Help options:
-?, --help Show this help message
--usage Display brief usage message
SMART promises better package management, always a real trial for every distribution. It gets high marks from many openSUSErs, and I figure I'll give it a go to see what happens.
I actually installed my first non-YaST package the other day. You have to be careful when installing new software, especially using the standard ./configure && make install method, as this circumvents the rpm package stuff and makes the package database obsolete. So you should always use an rpm to install stuff. According to this page, you don't need to necessarily use a "SUSE rpm", that any rpm should work. But you can also use checkinstall to do your work and create an rpm for you. You just replace the make install step with checkinstall, and it creates an rpm for you. From there, you can just do an rpm -i to install it. I did this with Crypto++ library and it worked like a charm.
$ cd cryptopp
$ ./configure
$ su -c checkinstall
checkinstall 1.6.0, Copyright 2002 Felipe Eduardo Sanchez Diaz Duran
This software is released under the GNU GPL.
**************************************
**** RPM package creation selected ***
**************************************
This package will be built according to these values:
1 - Summary: [ libcryptopp, v5.5 ]
2 - Name: [ cryptopp ]
3 - Version: [ 20070510 ]
4 - Release: [ 1 ]
5 - License: [ GPL ]
6 - Group: [ Applications/System ]
7 - Architecture: [ i386 ]
8 - Source location: [ cryptopp ]
9 - Alternate source location: [ ]
10 - Requires: [ ]
11 - Provides: [ cryptopp ]
Enter a number to change any of them or press ENTER to continue: 4
Enter new release number:
>> 5.5
This package will be built according to these values:
1 - Summary: [ libcryptopp, v5.5 ]
2 - Name: [ cryptopp ]
3 - Version: [ 20070510 ]
4 - Release: [ 5.5 ]
5 - License: [ GPL ]
6 - Group: [ Applications/System ]
7 - Architecture: [ i386 ]
8 - Source location: [ cryptopp ]
9 - Alternate source location: [ ]
10 - Requires: [ ]
11 - Provides: [ cryptopp ]
Enter a number to change any of them or press ENTER to continue:
Installing with make install...
========================= Installation results ===========================
mkdir -p /usr/include/crypto /usr/lib /usr/bin
cp *.h /usr/include/crypto
cp *.a /usr/lib
cp *.exe /usr/bin
======================== Installation successful ==========================
Copying documentation directory...
./
./Readme.txt
Copying files to the temporary directory...OK
Compressing man pages...OK
Building file list...OK
Building RPM package...OK
NOTE: The package will not be installed
Erasing temporary files...OK
Writing backup package...OK
Deleting temp dir...OK
**********************************************************************
Done. The new package has been saved to
/usr/src/packages/RPMS/i386/cryptopp-20070510-5.5.i386.rpm
You can install it in your system anytime using:
rpm -i cryptopp-20070510-5.5.i386.rpm
**********************************************************************
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