Package Managers (was Re: Yelp 2.10 info and man pages.)

[Michael A. Peters]

On Tue, 2005-06-28 at 17:51 -0500, John Bray wrote:

> the smart package manager doesn't quite let you at man pages etc, but it
> does let you view all the descriptions from the packages.
> 
> i was amazed at the understandings i got about what was out there as i
> browsed through all the repo's packages in smart.  its gradually become
> my only package manager because of that clarity.
> 
> john
> 

I really liked smart when I used it in fc3.
In fc4 I'm using yumex - which also lets you view package descriptions.
I'm using yumex primarily to allow me to test it - but one feature I
really like about smart is the ability to specify that certain
repositories have preference regardless of EVR and the ability to
specify preferences on individual apps within a particular lower
priority repository to then have a higher priority for that particular
app.

I currently don't need that - but one project that excites me is the
Elektra project (formerly know as Linux Registry) and I'm hoping to
convince un-named company XYZ to host a build and yum server that can
act as an unofficial fedora-alternatives server for the purpose of apps
that conflict with core/extras - which would include the elektra patched
core apps (and some others) so that they can be more easily tested and
evaluated for someday inclusion of core/extras.

If that is fruitful, then smart will definitely be of use to me again -
as I would want to test SOME of the alternative apps but not all of
them, and want an easy way to go back to the core version when problems
exist ... (I tend to test stuff on computers I actually use - that's the
best way imho - as long as a good backup system for critical data is in
place)