common linux package manager

[anusha_jc]

hi eveybody.. i dont know whether this ia the right forum to post this.. anyway.. we r trying to develope a common linux package manager.. we have installed rmp in ubuntu, now what v really need to do is make the packages installed through dpkg visible to rpm and vice versa.. ie if a package is installed through rpm, dpkg should be able to remove it.. for that i guess we have to write a wrapper.. it should be triggered from the command line.. we are stuck here, dont know how to trigger the wrapper soon after any command starting with 'rpm' or 'dpkg' is input. need help.. thank you

[i92guboj]

hi eveybody.. i dont know whether this ia the right forum to post this.. anyway.. we r trying to develope a common linux package manager.. we have installed rmp in ubuntu, now what v really need to do is make the packages installed through dpkg visible to rpm and vice versa.. ie if a package is installed through rpm, dpkg should be able to remove it.. for that i guess we have to write a wrapper.. it should be triggered from the command line.. we are stuck here, dont know how to trigger the wrapper soon after any command starting with 'rpm' or 'dpkg' is input. need help.. thank you

I don't think it's that easy, because if you want each package manager to be able to view the info contained within the opposite package manager's database.

Plus, as I see it, it doesn't make any sense to duplicate this work. I'd just design a bash script that can guess to which pm the package belongs, and call internally the correct tool to process, query, or whatever, it.

I am not familiar with the rpm or apt-get database formats though. So there could be something trivial that I am not seeing.

In addition, you can use alien to convert between package formats, so, that's another possibility.

Also, if you are picky about naming, you can just define two aliases that can be used to call your custom wrapper script by invoking rpm or dpkg, for example:

alias dpkg='/usr/local/bin/mywrapper.sh'
alias rpm='/usr/local/bin/mywrapper.sh'

The script would need to parse the package name, guess if it's rpm or deb, and interpret the rest of the parameters, translating it correctly depending on the tool that will be called. Nothing really difficult there. Where to put those aliases depends on these:

1.- are you wanting to use it globally, or only as a given user?
2.- if globally, then the distro you are running also matters