Deb/apt might have been nicer to use, but as a packager I found the packaging format extremely horrible to work with. There's a very complex interaction betwee

Deb/apt might have been nicer to use, but as a packager I found the packaging format extremely horrible to work with. There's a very complex interaction between the various files which define a package. It's extremely hard to find out what debhelper and its associated commands are actually doing and to debug them, particularly if you're trying to split a package into multiple parts. I gave up several times trying to make my package before finally succeeding with a simplified version. I'm not sure I will understand how it works when I go back to it. On top of that the sheer volume of rules and regulations, different packaging helpers and out of date suggestions just added to the problem. Deb has far too much magic. Rpm is much clearer. I can define a simple configuration file which takes the source, patches it, builds it, and describes the packaged files. I've never had a problem understanding an rpm source package.