[Yum-devel] Repository management

Panu Matilainen pmatilai at welho.com
Mon Apr 25 10:48:48 UTC 2005


On Mon, 25 Apr 2005, Chip Turner wrote:
>
> Something I notice over and over on what seems like every yum
> repository on the planet is a page with instructions of what to paste
> into your yum repo configuration to enable or disable a given
> repository.
>
> Over and over.
>
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Extras_2fUsingExtras
> http://dag.wieers.com/home-made/apt/FAQ.php#B3
> http://rpm.livna.org/configuration.html
> ... and bunches more ...
>
> It strikes me that given the number of good repos out there that maybe
> there should be a better way to manage the repositories on a system.
> Basically a simple tool that would read out of data on a server about
> the repos it offers.  Something dead simple for people to use.
> Roughly:
>
> yum-repo add http://fedoraproject.org/fc3-extras.repo
> yum-repo list-repos
> yum-repo disable-repo fc3-extras
>
> etc.  The URL in the first case is likely just to a .repo file, but
> there may be a need for meta data describing a repo that doesn't exist
> purely in the repo itself, so maybe another format... though I tend to
> like not creating new file formats myself.

Yup. Smartpm has something like this - just choose "Add channel 
description from URL" and copy-paste a repo URL into the field, all the 
dirty details will be taken care of by that. I haven't checked what sort 
of format Smart uses but before inventing yet another, it might be worth 
checking out if it's something that can be "reused" :)

>
> So basically I think we need tools to manage the .repo files in
> /etc/yum.repos.d.  Eventually this could be extended to 'click here to
> subscribe to this repository' with mime handlers associated inside of
> a user's browser.
>
> The key thing yum brings as I see it is easy addition (and updating)
> of software.  I'd like to see adding a new repo to be as easy as
> typing 'yum install xine'.  I know it's a bit... frilly?... but this
> kind of thing goes a good distance in making it easier for users of
> yum (both end users and software distributors) to get more of the
> software they like.

I'd very much like to something like this - if not added to yum but as a 
separate yum-repo program with both GUI and text-mode interfaces 
ultimately.

>
> Such a tool could exist outside of yum, I suppose, but I see it having
> much more value inside of it.  I'd be willing to do the work (not that
> I see there being much), but only if there is agreement people would
> find this useful.  I'm just posting here right now but perhaps it
> would be better on fedora-devel-list?

IIRC there was a thread about this at some point - prolly last year. I 
don't remember the conclusion which quite likely means that one wasn't 
reached, other than "yes it would be nice if this were somehow easier for
users" :)

 	- Panu -



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