On: Why Puppet, Chef, Ansible aren't good enough

[turrini]

That's simple not true.

apt-get ensure that application will get the right version of a library for its execution.

'Untaring' doesn't mean the application will work OK with their dependencies (since there's no verification).

So anyone could do a dpkg -i --force-all *.deb. Its the same thing.

[0xbadcafebee → turrini]

Actually I believe it's more like

  dpkg -i -E -G -B --force-overwrite --force-breaks --force-conflicts --force-depends --force-depends-version *.deb

with one or two extra things, like installpkg/upgradepkg will prompt you for what you want to do with config files, and adds one or two extra heuristics. But, yes, dpkg could totally be used in a similar way as upgradepkg. It's just more complicated so it doesn't work as well ;)