Yum disaster! DELETED mysql!

[Temlakos]

Nat Gross wrote:
>     I use smart, myself. And in smart, I can "lock" a package and make sure
>     that it doesn't go anyplace. I can even see in advance what "smart" is
>     going to upgrade or downgrade or remove /before/ it happens.
> 
>     No, don't /dump/ yum. But neither should you use it as your primary
>     package updater. I keep it around for certain situations such as
>     "repository reported unexpected size" that I've been seeing lately from
>     some of the jpp repos.
> 
>     Temlakos
> 
> I used to use (on FC2) the RH Update program, but that was well below my 
> expectations.
> Yum was wonderful - until now. (I guess it made up for being 'wonderful'.))
> Is the current RH updater any good? And what is Smart? How long have you 
> been using it?
> 
> -nat
> 

Forget the RHN up2date program. It broke beyond easy repair on FC4. I 
understand that a rebuild of it is planned for FC5.

Smart is a new kind of package manager. You can find details on 
http://www.smart.org/, and you can get "smart" on Axel's at-stable repo. 
(yum install smart smart-gui smart-update). I have the full graphical 
interface. You define channels of all types: yum repos, apt repos 
(including apt-for-Debian and apt-for-RPM), mirror lists, and, of 
course, a channel for your own RPM installed base. You can have as many 
repos as you want, and you can assign different /priorities/ to 
different repos (and different packages on each repo) to minimize 
conflicts. Better yet, the first time you use smart, you can execute an 
option called "Fix All Problems" that will iron out any conflicted 
relationships among your installed packages.

All of the above is necessary because at least two different kinds of 
repos exist, which use two different versions of source code to build 
from. So I rate the Fedora base, updates-released, extras, and livna at 
priority 10, kde at 9, freshrpms, dag, and dries at 8, and at-stable at 
7 (except that on at-stable, I rate smart, smart-gui, smart-update, and 
smart-debuginfo at priority 10 across the board). Those are just my 
personal preferences. That way, you'll get the most recent package at 
the highest priority, and you'll stop most conflicts from happening.

Interestingly, if you install smart right now, you'll pull in a special 
multi-channel configurator from at-stable. Go ahead and let that install 
/before/ you open smart for the first time. Then it should detect most 
of your channels and list them for you, including your own RPM installed 
base.

Smart's manual and Help system are very rich. Use them! Believe me, you 
can't go wrong. Smart can get annoying sometimes, but at least it 
wouldn't have removed mysql without at least /warning/ you that this was 
going to happen!

Temlakos