yum vs. up2date

[James Mckenzie]

On Wed, 27 Oct 2004, Mike WItt wrote:

> I've been experimenting with yum and up2date. They both appear to
> have their merits. I've got a couple of additional questions.
> 
> (1) Is it "safe" to use both yum and up2date? 

yes

>     It *appears* that
>     one recognizes changes that were made by the other. Is this
>     always the case? 

Because both use 'rpmdb' to identify the current state of the
sytem. (the current state could have been arived at by use of
rpm/yum/up2date/apt/other-means previously)

This may be the solution to my problem running system-config-packages.  I may have no rpm database....

>     Or can you get in trouble if you don't stick
>     to one or the other?

I don't think so.

I routinely use both.  However, you have to make sure that you use yum with the upgrade and not update option.

> 
> (2) What is the best way to go about finding the "right" repositories
>     to use? Both in terms of getting the "correct" updates, and also
>     in terms of not generating undue traffic?

The way I do this (with yum) is:

- /etc/yum.conf is the main config - which includes repositories which
  I ALWAYS want to use. (fc1-release,fc1-updates,fc1-extras)

  Now I can do 'yum update' all the time.

- I have separate configs for additional repositories - which I tend
to use occasionally - and look for only specific packages. (for eg: I
don't want all updates from 'dag' (like rsync - which might overwrite
fedora-release versions - just a couple of extra pacakges like pine). 
So I have /etc/yum.conf.dag with (fc1-release,fc1-updates,fc1-extras,fc1-dag)

Now I can do 'yum -c /etc/yum.conf.dag update pine'

yum-2.1 - which comes with FC3 (beta) has a better way to manage this
(so I don't have to repeat fc1-release in both /etc/yum.conf &
/etc/yum.conf.dag

Yum with FC2 is limited to one repository. However, up2date selects a random location.  I'm located in the US and have downloaded from both European and Asian repositories (and some of them are faster/better than those located in the US.)

Here is what I do:

I use the Red Had Alert Notification tool to find out if there are any new packages available.  The I use yum to download and upgrade them.  If I use up2date, I have it download only the new package.  I then use rpm -Uvh to upgrade the dowloaded package.  If the packge 'breaks' (I have a very slow connection) then I use either wget or gftp (these allow recovery of a broken connection) to get the package from repository local to me.  So, I use three of the four (that I know of) methods to update/upgrade existing packages.  Right now, I cannot use system-config-packages and (as stated above) I think that I know why it cannot find the installation tree.

James McKenzie


James McKenzie
A Proud User of Linux!