pirut (FC5 additional package installation help)

[Paul Howarth]

On Thu, 2006-04-13 at 09:45 +0200, Sjoerd Mullender wrote:
> Paul Howarth wrote:
> > On Wed, 2006-04-12 at 16:06 -0700, Kevin Grover wrote:
> > 
> >>I installed FC5 (at work) from an NFS mount.  I picked the 'customize
> >>later' option on intial install rather than spend the time to select
> >>individual packages.  When I run 'Add/Remove Software' from the Gnome
> >>(metacity) WM, a GUI pops up, it thinks for a while and gives me an
> >>error:
> >>
> >>'unable to retrieve software information'
> >>
> >>[[Note much help there.  Reminds me of an old fortan compiler that
> >>simply said 'No' if the source file had any error.]]
> >>
> >>When I click OK the GUI closes (all windows go away), 
> >>
> >>After poking around, I figured out what program was running (pirut)
> >>and ran it from the command line.  Now I see an error there:
> >>
> >>'ERROR: Cannot find a valid baseurl for repo: core'
> >>
> >>I looked for help on pirut on the system
> >>the program has --help or -h option
> >>no man page
> >>no info page
> >>nothing found in included help (html)
> >>/usr/doc/pirut* was useless
> >>briefly looked at pirut python code, no help there
> >>
> >>Is there a way I can get pirut to look at the nfs mounted image for
> >>install packages instead of going over the net?  I can not possibly
> >>put this machine on an Internet connection.  I guess, I can just nuke
> >>everything and re-install and actually choose the options.  I almost
> >>wish I would have just left FC4 on the machine.
> >>
> >>I also tried yum, rpm, and system-install-packages but it seemd that I
> >>had to list a needed packages explicitly.  I tried for a while and
> >>gave up.  There must be an easier way.
> >>
> >>If there's some other program I can use, or if I can get rpm or yum to
> >>let me select packages.  I want to install the KDE stuff, some other
> >>WMs, and set XDMCP to be launchable from Applications (?? I think
> >>menu) on the login screen.  I know XDMCP is not secure, it does not
> >>matter: the network this will run on a physically secure.
> >>
> >>Everything worked fine (installing new software with pirut) on my home
> >>machine (which is connected to the Internet).
> >>
> >>Any help appreciated.
> >>
> >>[[FC5 seams to have so much documentation, but never anything I'm
> >>really lookiing for]]
> > 
> > 
> > All of the FC5 package management tools are based on yum.
> > 
> > Yum is by default configured to get packages from the Internet.
> > 
> > There is currently no support in yum or the other tools for reading
> > package information from CD or DVD media, though this is planned for the
> > future.
> 
> Not entirely true.  You can get it to work.
> I have a copy of the DVD ISO on my system which is mounted through the
> loop-back mount (but it would work equally well for the extracted DVD).
>  In some other directory I have a symlink to the Fedora subdirectory
> from the DVD.  In that (other) directory I ran the command
> 	createrepo -g Fedora/base/comps.xml .
> This directory I can now use as a source for yum (and hence pirut,
> yumex, etc.).

Which is exactly what I suggest as my workaround below...

> > This is all mentioned here:
> > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Bugs/FC5Common
> > 
> > On that page you will find a link to my workaound for this issue:
> > http://www.city-fan.org/tips/YumRepoFromImages

... except that there is no need to run createrepo if you have the DVD
ISO because the metadata is already on the DVD.

Paul.