to yum or apt

[Paul Howarth]

On Sun, 2005-08-21 at 11:25 +0200, Toralf Lund wrote:
> Richard Emberson wrote:
> 
> >
> > In the past I've used synaptic (which uses apt). Now that I've just 
> > upgraded to
> > FC4, the question I've got is should I switch over to use the Yum 
> > Extender?
> > Will packages available to yum users also be available to apt users?
> > Does yumex assure that all dependencies are satisfied before doing an 
> > install?
> 
> Haven't tried yumex (yet), just plain yum, but that does make sure 
> everything is right wrt. dependencies etc.

Yes; in fact yum doesn't have provide options to break dependencies,
unlike rpm itself.

> Apart from that, the way I understand it, apt and yum now use exactly 
> the same "repository" data, i.e. a yum-enabled distribution directory 
> will also work with apt and vice versa. If it uses the current 
> repository format, that is; there used to be different, incompatible 
> formats, then both tools were updated to support a common standard.

I've not heard of any version of apt that can use repo data from any
version of yum.

Up2date though, can handle old and new yum metadata plus apt metadata.
Perhaps that's what you were thinking of?

> So you should be able to switch between yum and apt at your whim. Or 
> up2date, which also uses the same distro data.

I believe there are more yum repos available than apt repos, but
synaptic, which is an apt-only front end as far as I know, seems to the
best-regarded package management GUI for now (though smart does have its
advocates).

So if you're familiar with and like synaptic, I'd be inclined to stick
with it, but you might need to look a bit harder for repos (freshrpms is
a good place to start, since they have mirrors in apt format of some
other repos).

Paul.
-- 
Paul Howarth <paul at city-fan.org>