Some ideas/questions about yum

[Hedayat Vatnakhah]

Hi all,
Currently, Fedora package management is one of the most annoying part of 
Fedora experience for new desktop users (at least for those without 
fast, always available internet connection). For such users, Fedora 
package management "Just Doesn't Work"! I've almost never been able to 
demonstrate using fedora package management tools for a fresh Fedora 
install without the need to use command line, editing yum configuration 
file(s), killing current running yum/package kit instance(s), installing 
some small rpm packages using rpm command instead of using yum or 
graphically, etc. And sometimes, I found it better to download yum 
metadata using another application and copying the downloaded file to 
yum cache; or even completely skip yum and use rpm and manually resolve 
dependencies when they are not too much!

First, I've some suggestions/requests which doesn't seem to need much 
work, and then some ideas which I'd like to know your opinions about.
1. Since Fedora 4, Fedora doesn't support installing software from DVD 
"out of the box". Fedora 8 is an exception here. Currently, it seems 
that the work is almost done (99% completed as in [1]), and fixing the 
remaining 1% doesn't seem to need much work but unfortunately it seems 
that it is stopped. I think requesting a small collaboration between the 
feature owner, PolicyKit and/or GIO people is not too much.

2. Maybe yum could be a bit more forgiving about inaccessible 
repositories when running. Consider this case: a new offline user 
installs Fedora, and then runs "Add/Remove Software". Currently, if he 
clicks on "all packages", he'll see an error message that yum is unable 
to contact fedora repository. I think it is better to show a warning to 
user about being unable to contact online repositories and then show all 
installed packages + the packages from all accessible repositories. 
IMHO it is much more reasonable than expecting the user to disable all 
such repositories in such cases (yum/packagekit can be a bit more 
intelligent and do it itslef).

Now, some ideas:
3. AFAIK, currently yum's primary database file contains information 
about packages, and all of the files in directories such as /usr/bin and 
/usr/lib, so that it can resolve package and file level dependencies. 
Isn't it possible to move file level information outside primary db 
(e.g. to primary_file_deps.db) and translate internal dependencies from 
file level dependencies to package level dependencies when creating 
repositories? (So that provides and requires tables in primary db only 
contain package references rather than file references?). It might be 
even possible to do it for dependencies outside repository; for example 
when creating updates repository, you can introduce fedora repository to 
createrepo, so it can translate all of the file level dependencies of 
updates packages also.

4. Even if the above solution is possible and can reduce the size of 
primary db, it won't solve the main problem: for large repositories, 
you'll need to download large database files. You'll need to download 
extra database files on some use cases anyway. So, it can be said that 
currently yum doesn't scale well.
What do you think about it: we can implement parts of yum at the server 
side (e.g. a web service), and do queries online. The client can submit 
queries to online repositories, aggregate the results (+using local 
repositories by itself) and do appropriate actions. It can also store 
received data to be used when offline or while they are valid. It'll be 
completely backward compatible with the current clients: those who use 
the old method can download repositories themselves, like what they do now.
It is possible to think about further details and design it completely, 
but I want to know about your opinions about the whole idea.

[1] http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MediaRepo

Thanks anyway,
Hedayat