@CataclysmicGentleman :-
I've always found that - with perhaps the odd distro-specific "tweak" - the contents of, say, a .deb and a .rpm package are largely the same once you strip 'em down.
The -.deb and -.rpm formats are there to tell the various distro-specific package management systems how to deal with them, and how to 'register' them as being on the system. That's what those are for. But .debs are usable across a large range of 'related' distros. The same goes for .rpms.
So often - if we want a binary or a library for Puppy - we'll just find a 'relevant' package, regardless of what it's packaged AS, then strip it down and just take out the bits we want. We then construct the relevant file-structure in a work area somewhere, and re-build it into either a .pet package or an SFS.
Once you've done all this a few times, it becomes second nature. This is more effective for us, since although the PPM (Puppy Package Manager) makes use of either the Ubuntu or Slackware repos for whatever distro a given Puppy is based around, Puppy often can't use those packages directly.....because Puppy's underlying method of running is just that little bit different to what most of you are used to. And this is why the Puppy community maintains its own repos of largely member-built packages that are specifically built for, and known to work WITH Puppy.
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Of course, the vast majority of users simply want to install a package (click-click-click) and immediately get on with using it. Puppy's definitely for the 'tweakers', 'tinkerers' and hobbyists in the Linux community. She wouldn't appeal to anyone else......but WE wouldn't have it any other way.
"Diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks." The best advice is, usually, to stay within your distro's package repos for software, since everything here is known to work 100% with your distro. Once you start going outside them, you're never quite sure what you're getting into.....and for most, less 'tech-savvy' folks, this makes the most sense. The more adventurous amongst us can come up with some truly amazing concoctions, simply because we have enough experience to know what we're doing......one example being, in my own case, my construction of a fully-'portable' package of the
Lightworks video-editor for Puppy. And it works, perfectly. Same goes for the range of portable browsers and other apps I maintain for the Puppy community.....
Mike.
