web site ammendments for yum

[Jonas Pasche]

Hi Eric,

> > 1) "If you are new to this stuff and don't know how to use apt/yum,
> >    please go the documentation section. This page isn't for you."
> 
> Interesting idea...  (Links are there, but no language like your above
> language).

Hehe, this hasn't been a suggestion for publishing "as is". I just
wanted to give an idea on what we should tell users here IMHO, to get
feedback before turning it into a full-featured paragraph.

However, the freshly updated Download page does reflect this while being
more honest to the user than me. :)

> > 2) A link to download.fedoralegacy.org, for people that simply want to
> >    download updates manually by HTTP
> 
> There, but should be more obvious...

It's quite good right now.

> > 3) A list of full yum/apt repository configurations
> 
> Not sure what that means (how it differs from the mirror list files
> for apt/yum on the mirrors page).

People that are downloading yum (and later, apt) from us have it already
preconfigured. I thought about configuration entries for people that are
already using a yum/apt from another packager (e.g. freshrpms) for some
repositories and simply want to include our repository into their
current configuration instead of completely switching to our version of
apt/yum.

The configuration file snippets are mainly the important part of the
configuration files we ship preconfigured with _our_ yum/apt. Putting
them on the Download page enables people to use our repositories without
downloading and installing _our_ yum/apt.

The principle behind this is:

People who _don't_ have apt/yum should follow our detailed instructions
and use our preconfigured packages.

People who already _have_ apt/yum need information about how they can
include our repositories into their existing configuration. This
information isn't yet available in a clean, simple manner.

> > 4) A list of mirrors to use instead of download.fedoralegacy.org
> 
> Is linked to from that page (as a separate mirror page).

Yes, quite good (the page itself, not its usefullness without any yet
available mirror).

> Yes.  But I like having the mirror page separate, if for no other reason
> than to make it easier to update/automate/etc.

That's just fine. The link to that page on the Download page should be
enough here.

> > Suggestion #2: As the pages are already written in PHP, why not include
> > a conf.php which ships variables like...
> 
> Same problem of keeping the conf.php up to date.

Not exactly, because you just need to update _one_ file and have the
others automatically point to current locations.

> > If you're using apt, please add the line that matches your distribution
> > to your /etc/apt/sources.list:
> 
> >From what Jesse told me, I thought there was some way to do this automagically
> using the files he posted on the mirrors page???

Well, I'm not an apt expert, but IMHO these files cannot be used by a
plain apt package. They are repository listings that can be used by
mirror-select.lua, an apt "plugin" that cares for mirror selection.
However, this plugin is not yet shipped with apt from freshrpms or apt
from fedora.us.

Without an apt package that has the mirror-select.lua script, these
files are not usable! One can only manually extract the needed
information and put it into /etc/apt/sources.list.

> So, Jonas:  First, see the new pages I just updated.  Then, help improve them
> with your changes above as you see fit.  (See what you get for expressing
> an opinion? Now I expect you to do work...)

From my point of view, only the configuration file snippets need to be
included, if you and the list agree with my argumentation on this topic.
My last posting included the complete paragraphs that are needed for
this.

Jonas
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