pretty up2date vs reliable yum?

[Craig White]

On Tue, 2005-01-25 at 17:16 +0000, Paul Howarth wrote:
> Tim Alberts wrote:
> > Redhat comes with the nice program up2date to install latest updates.
> > It's got the nice icon on the start bar that says 'updates available'
> > click on it log in and download...
> > 
> > Yum seems to be found nowhere except for the people who know Linux and
> > command line etc...
> > 
> > I try to stick with up2date because I want the nice GUI tools, something
> > Linux is trying (or should be trying) to brag about.  However, I get
> > up2date to completely download and install updates maybe one out of a
> > dozen times (broad band connection).
> > 
> > I've been on this list before and noted that most of the 'experts'
> > always answer questions about updates with 'just use yum'...Note, this
> > is my impression, I may be wrong.  Also note I define 'experts' as the
> > folks on this list whom always seem to have an answer for every
> > question.
> > 
> > If yum is so much better that the experts just go to it, why is up2date
> > the program on the start bar?  Why isn't yum given the nice icon on the
> > start bar by default?
> 
> It's much easier to give a clear, concise answer to a question about how 
> something should be installed or updated by giving the exact 
> command-line command that would need to be run rather than to describe a 
> GUI method for doing the same thing, which might involve navigating 
> several levels of menus, clicking several buttons, filling in several 
> fields etc., and may be different for KDE or gnome users. So that's why 
> responses tend to favour the command line I think.
> 
> However, there is a command-line version of up2date that could be used 
> in much the same way as yum (indeed, I use it regularly for the RHEL 
> boxes at work) so I think the choice of yum rather than up2date there is 
> more a case of personal preference.
----
I think that there's a little more than that.

up2date - whether run from cli or gui, polls the server for the mirror
to use to obtain updates whereas yum has to be configured for exact
repositories. 

There are times when up2date will be told to use a mirror and that
mirror will time out or for some reason be unavailable and this is not
predictable. This can usually be solved by closing out all of the
up2date gui windows and starting again (it will poll for the mirror to
use again and hopefully will get a new assignment).

Since yum uses only the specifically designated repositories, you will
see if it/they fail immediately, thereby giving clue what is wrong and
thus, is easier for this list to dissect.

When you use the up2date applet, you are not seeing the totality of the
problems (my guess is that they are logged in /var/log/up2date)

Craig