Yum sessions?

[Jeff Spaleta]

On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 07:47:02 +1100 (EST), Greg Bell <gregbell at znet.com> wrote:
> command prompt, I could yum list, yum info, and finally yum install, all
> with only one read of repository metadata from local files...

as Ralf has pointed out... the yum in rawhide is much faster
concerning some operations. If my understanding is correct, the yum in
rawhide builds a sqlite database when needed and then queries the
database instead of trying to reload all the information into memory
with every yum operation.  With the rawhide version of yum, multiple
runs of yum where the information on the mirrors is unchanging results
in much quicker response thanks to the local sqlite database. The
sqlite database is only rebuilt if yum detects a change in the
metadata at the contacted mirror.

Though you can still speed up things even further for some operations
like list and info where you don't need to contact a mirror to
download any packages.
yum makecache   (freshen the local cache of all the metadata)
yum -C list    
yum -C info

but if you dont have the packages and the headers downloaded locally
to the cache yum -C install  isn't going to work, so it might not be
as useful to you as the other 2 commands.

If you have to go out and touch the network... that means examining
the metadata at the mirror and potentially rebuilding the local
database of information.

-jef