> Christian Lavoie wrote: > >I was wondering... (And this probably already has been mentioned but > >anyway), why wouldn't DPKG/APT/DSELECT use a real database server like > >mySQL/mSQL/PostgreSQL/... to keep it's own database?
> Because a database has to be set up, as well as taking a significant > amount of space that simply isn't available on the installation floppies. As an option on the CD/downloadable dists? > dselect/apt has to work as soon as the base system is installed. If you > introduce a complex product like a RDBMS, there's just too much extra > that can go wrong. I don't think we should REPLACE the whole thing with a database driven solution. Let's keep it like dselect's methods. Just a highly complex method, made to work on largely distributed networks or other things like that, or where a server already is in place. To plug my other posts, we could even sell access to such a database server on the internet, and use that to feed the starving FSF's bank account. My point is that on full-grown systems where installation is months or years ago (and next installation is in decades), such speed improvements could be quite a good thing.
