new metadata format for repositories

[Jim Cornette]

seth vidal wrote:
> Hi all,
>  As some of you know, I've been working on an xml format for a
> repository of packages. I've been working on this with many other people
> involved in pkg management tool development and repository maintenance.
> 
> Right now we've created a specification:
> (http://linux.duke.edu/metadata/readme.metadata)
> 
> and I've written a program to create this format of files from a
> directory of rpms:
> http://linux.duke.edu/metadata/generate/createrepo-0.3.1.tar.gz
> 
> I know that work is being done to support this format in up2date, yum
> and apt. It's not complete yet, and it's not obvious if we'll be ready
> for FC2 - but the goal of this is to make a format that all of the
> package mgmt tools can use and to remove the need for 3+ different
> representations of same package metadata
> 
> Our goals were:
>   bandwidth-light
>   functional for dependency resolution
>   functional for general queries
>   standard format for metadata no matter what the package type (right
> now .deb and rpm)
> 
> Take a look at the above program, run it against a set of packages and
> see what bugs you can find.
> I'd encourage anyone looking for explanations of the format to look at
> the dtds and look at the mailing list archives:
> https://lists.dulug.duke.edu/pipermail/rpm-metadata/
> 
> let me know what is broken or not-quite-right.
> 
> people to thank:
> Adrian Likins
> Brent Fox
> Jeff Licquicia
> Jeff Johnson
> Jeremy Katz
> Russ Herrold
> Panu Matilainen
> John Daily
> Peter Bowen
> Joe Shaw
> Daniel Veillard
> Malcolm Treddinick
> James Olin-Oden
> Mark Hatle
> Martin Michlmayr
> Darrin Thompson
> Matt Zimmerman
> (this list compiled from the names of people who contributed to the
> discussion on the mailing list, if I missed anyone, please let me know)
> 
> 
> Thanks.
> -sv



I was trying to update a lot of packages through both up2date and 
through yum. I still am having problems with the noarch rpms. The rpms 
start to download, then stall up2date or kill yum. Below is a list of 
the files that I am having problems with downloading.

automake14-1.4p6-8.noarch.rpm
automake-1.8.2-1.noarch.rpm
docbook-style-xsl-1.64.1-5.noarch.rpm
ghostscript-7.07-17.i386.rpm
ghostscript-fonts-8.11-1.noarch.rpm
gnome-icon-theme-1.1.5-1.noarch.rpm
gnome-vfs2-2.5.5-2.i386.rpm
gnome-vfs2-devel-2.5.5-2.i386.rpm
hwdata-0.103-1.noarch.rpm
repodata
system-config-language-1.1.5-1.noarch.rpm
system-config-samba-1.2.2-1.noarch.rpm
system-config-users-1.2.8-1.noarch.rpm


The ghostscripts downloaded alright. The noarch stalled. I then tried 
out the generation script for the standardized repodata on these files. 
The generation went successful. It generated the below files within the 
repodata directory.

29437 Jan 20 21:08 filelists.xml.gz
21249 Jan 20 21:08 other.xml.gz
  5689 Jan 20 21:08 primary.xml.gz
   666 Jan 20 21:08 repomd.xml


I then gzipped the directory into the below file. (directory and subdir 
data)

17261649 Jan 20 22:01 repo-noarch.tar.gz

If this information would be of any use to anyone, whee would I send it?

I was able to download the noarch rpms from my mirror and the rpms 
installed fine through up2date using a local directory.

Jim