Some thoughts about yum and repositories

[D. D. Brierton]

On Thu, 2004-10-28 at 19:29, William Hooper wrote:
> D. D. Brierton said:
> [snip]
> > 1. Yum repositories should have a mirrors.xml file. All the user
> > need do is sign up to the main repository itself, the mirrors.xml file is
> > downloaded, and yum tries to use the mirror that is closest or fastest
> > (I'm not sure *how* it should do
> > that, but lets think of this as an ideal scenario proposal).
> 
> The version of yum in rawhide already has this.  IIRC it does it using the
> same format as up2date, point it to a text file of repos and it randomly
> picks one.

Excellent. So all I do is add rpm.livna.org to yum.conf and yum
automagically takes care of the rest? Of course, it would be nice if a
mirror could be chosen in some non-random way, but I'm really not sure
how feasible that is.

> [snip]
> > 3. If 1. can be implemented, then I think the GPG key of
> > the repository should automatically be installed
> 
> At the bare minimum it should prompt you if you want to install the key.

Yes, I'd be happy with that.

> IMHO since this is a once-a-repo operation automation isn't needed.  I
> also like to know what keys I'm installing.

Well, if you add the repository, and you know that yum will
automatically install the repository's key, then you would know what key
you were installing.

> > 4. I shouldn't need to alter my
> > yum.conf when I upgrade to a new version of FC -- yum should determine
> > which version of FC I am running and automatically use the appropriate
> > repositories (i.e. if I subscribe to rpm.livna.org when running FC2 and
> > then I upgrade to FC3 yum should automatically start using livna's FC3
> > repository).
> 
> If your repos and your yum.conf are created correctly this is already
> done.  That is why the $releasever and $basearch variables exist.

Ah, yes. I'd forgotten that I had that in my yum.conf. I think I was
thrown by the number of people on the fedora-test list who were recently
saying that yum wasn't finding any updates and it turned out that they
were pointing at the wrong repos. They may just have been a testing
problem as opposed to a yum problem

> [snip]
> > 6. There should be some way of distinguishing
> > between a repository that is part of Fedora Core, or Fedora Extras or
> > Fedora
> > Alternatives.
> [snip]
> 
> Of course it would be nice to decide what those terms mean and to what
> repos they apply first.

I thought that was fairly clear: Fedora Core is the packages belonging
to the final release of your current version and the packages in Fedora
Core Updates Released; Fedora Extras is anything designed specifically
to work *with* Fedora Core without in anyway altering anything in Fedora
Core; Fedora Alternatives is anything designed to work with Fedora Core
which may additionally provide alternative packages of elements of
Fedora core or Fedora Extras.

Best, Darren

-- 
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D. D. Brierton            darren at dzr-web.com          www.dzr-web.com
       Trying is the first step towards failure (Homer Simpson)
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