Where things stand

[Les Mikesell]

On Sat, 2006-05-13 at 12:32, Karl Larsen wrote:
> >
> > Fedora is a 'fast release' distribution where the isos are not
> > changed after the initial release but many fixes are put
> > in the update repositories.  Users are expected to do
> > 'yum update' frequently to pick up the changes.  I'm not sure
> > if it fixes the specific problem you encountered, though.
> >   
>     Hi Les, How many guys are supposed to know about yum?

It's safe to assume that *any* system is going to need updates,
especially a fast-changing on, so people who don't like
to read documentation in the obvious places would probably
do a google search for
fedora updates
and see on the first hit that the updates can be downloaded
using yum.  People who like to look in the obvious places
first would go to http://fedora.redhat.com/ and read the
links under 'Documentation' on the top right of the page.
Yet another way would be to look for the way to install
mp3 or dvd playing capability into fedora, which would also
point you to additional repositories.

>  And I have 
> never done a yum update on ANY computer. I have been using Linux since 
> 1994 and we didn't have yum then.

You've been missing a lot then. RPM will tell you about
missing dependencies but won't do anything to fix them for you.
RedHat based systems used 'up2date' which evolved into a
subscription service.  An assortment of free third party
RPM repositories developed (freshrpms, etc.) to provide updates
and many additional programs using apt-get (designed for Debian
but adapted to RPM), and yum to resolve dependencies for you. When
RedHat spun off fedora, the update system moved to fedora
core and extra repositories, although the third party extras
are still around and yum became the preferred app because it
is the only one that understands mixed x86/x86_64 systems.

>     Where should I go to learn about yum? My knowledge is all from email 
> and the man pages.

For updates, all you need to know is 'yum update', although FC5
has a GUI wrapper you'd find in the menus. For yum documentation,
try here: http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/yum/.
If you want add-on programs, start here:
http://rpm.livna.org/configuration.html.

> It seems that not many people have tried to use Thunderbird on FC4.

I doubt if many people use FC4 without updates. It comes up
running OK for me, but I use evolution which also works fine.

-- 
  Les Mikesell
   lesmikesell at gmail.com