| Looking for Linux apps? Try rpmseek.com |
(Jul. 3, 2003)
So you made a switch to the Linux operating system. Where do you go to find applications on the web? rpmseek.com, of course! DesktopLinux.com sat down with Marc Rendenbach, founder of rpmseek.com to discuss how to get those applications and pre-built files for your system. Marc explains the role of his website in helping guide users to programs -- including a list of popular files -- and offers a brief introduction to getting started using the familiar rpm format . . .
Marc: rpmseek.com was launched in November 2002. At this point the search engine was a completely unknown service. After some well-known Linux portals and magazines reported on rpmseek.com the number of visitors increased by leaps and bounds. This trend is unbroken til this day.
DesktopLinux.com: Do you have any plans to include other packages for Linux, as an example for Debian-based distibutions?
Marc: Yes, the expansion of the index for both Debian or tar.gz packages has been under discussion for a long time. An automatic survey of tar.gz packages is very difficult because these package do not contain any meta information like rpm or debian packages do. Debian packages will be added shortly.
DesktopLinux.com: The site is available in German and English, any plans for additional language support or translations?
Marc: This is not the first time someone has asked that question. From the technical point of view it would be no problem to add more languages. But additional languages means much more work relating to maintenance and further development. Every enhancement and every change has to be done for every language. Therefore there will be no more languages for the time being, so as not to constrain further development.
DesktopLinux.com: Can users of other distributions use rpmseek and convert the rpms to the format they need to? What steps should they take?
Marc: Good question! That addresses one of the key weaknesses of the rpm format. If you want to be sure that a rpm installs without problems you have to use a rpm that was not only build for your distribution, but one that was built for exacty the specific version of the used distribution. Therefore, it can be really difficult to find the suitable rpm.
In order to diffuse this problem, rpmseek.com indexes rpms of as many distributions as possible in all commonly used versions. If you don't find a suitable rpm package you can try to convert a package of anonther distribution. This is possible using the "alien" package converter.
DesktopLinux.com: What can I do, if the software I'm looking for is not part of the used distribution?
Marc: There are lots of software that is not part of several distributions. For instance Red Hat doesn't include audio or video codecs in its distribution for legal reasons. Anyhow, you don't have to forgo such software. Lots of free and independant rpm archives are trying to close that gap. Best known archives are for example sourceforge.net or freshrpms.net.
The drawback is, that many of this archives are not well-known or they don't offer a search facility. rpmseek.com consolidates rpms of distributions and numerous free archives in one user interface, so that all these rpms can be searched in a single query.
If you want to perform a more specific search. you can use rpmseek's "extended seek" facility where you can choose archives that are suitable to a special distribution. If you don't know exactly what you are looking for you can use the "browse by distribution" overviews for each and every distribution or archive.
DesktopLinux.com: How do you determine the programs are available at rpmseek.com? Could you point us to any guidelines for submissions?
Marc: For now, there are only mirror servers of distributions and established archives indexed. We look at the reliability of the provided rpm packages and for the permanent accessibility of the linked servers. There are over 400.000 different rpms indexed at rpmseek.com, so it is impossible to inspect every single package in respect of functionality. But we have selected those listed resources carefully, and ensure the resources that are indexed work appropriately. We do not, for example, provide all rpms blindly indexed that can be found somewhere else on the Internet.
If a special rpm or an archive is missing or a new one suggested, one email is enough and the appropriate rpms or archives will be added to the index.
DesktopLinux.com: What sorts of users represent rpmseek's visitors? Are you seeing more activity from Europe than the US so far?
Marc: rpmseek.com users expand from new Linux users to more experienced users -- and they use the service for both professional and private use.
At the moment, there are slightly more German speaking visitors using
rpmseek.com. Certainly this is because we operate the portal from Germany and it has been easier to popularize the portal in this country. Overall the share of English speaking visitors is growing faster, especially from the US.
DesktopLinux.com: What is the demand for Linux in your region? Can you discuss the rollout of in Germany?
Marc: Linux is gaining a permanent role in Germany and is considered a real alternative to fulfill enterprise computing needs more and more. This is especially true in the operation of servers. Demand for Linux on desktop PCs is emerging at a more rapid race in the past few months.
State-run services are looking more and more for Linux as an
alternative. For instance since the beginning of 2002 the German Federal Diet is based on Linux servers that displaced the Windows
infrastructure. But there are many great efforts especially of one specific company to hamper this evolution.
DesktopLinux.com: What are the goals for rpmseek.com?
Marc: The portal's target is to provide a central contact point for software, documentations, questions and answers around the open source operating system Linux. Thus, additional to the search facilities a discussion board was installed recently, where users can talk to other users, discuss problems and find solutions.
Our long-term goal is to extend the search facilitie to FAQS, Man
Pages, RFC, etc so that rpmseek.com will be a one-stop destination for
gathering software, finding documentation, and providing the latest Q&As for the Linux OS.
DesktopLinux.com: What are the most popular downloads?
Marc: The top twenty most popular downloads are listed on the welcome page and the list is updated every few minutes. Popular programs typically include web browsers, media players, and other applications that make using Linux easy for the end user -- such as Adobe Acrobat.
DesktopLinux.com: Thanks!
(Click here for further information)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
