On Tue, 18 Dec 2007 19:24:26 -0600 (CST), "Mike Miller" <mbmiller at taxa.epi.umn.edu> said: > Why can't I use four different package systems on the same installation > of > one distro? The reason isn't philosophical -- there is either a > technical > reason why I can't do it, or I can do it. The distro might come with > only > one package management program, but they are all freely available so I > ought to be able to compile them all and use them all, if I want to. The reason is one of practicality and it's that you can only use a package management system that supports the package format you want to use. For practical reasons, you can't, to a large extend, use different package formats especially when you're dealing with package dependencies. The reason I say "practical" is because technically, you can use different package formats as song as you configure the software so that dependencies are satisfied, and, for scalability, invent another piece of software that can manage those dependencies based on the two different package formats.