[Yum] Suggestion on yum download feedback and other things

Michael Stenner mstenner at phy.duke.edu
Mon Sep 29 16:36:38 UTC 2003


On Sun, Sep 28, 2003 at 07:09:13PM -0700, Nathan G. Grennan wrote:
>    I downloading and upgraded to the latest daily, and have some
> suggestions for the yum download feedback.

Let me say first of all that this is an almost completely aesthetic
and therefore subjective issue.  My opinion on these matters is for
the most part majority rules.

>    The currently form seems foreign to to the style of output that yum
> had before. 

Yes.  It changed :)  Lots of people wanted this change.

> The main problem being multiple lines, and the secondary
> problem being the progress bar. To me it makes more sense to have one
> line for each things. I provided examples below.
> 
> Server: stable for Fedora Linux 0.94
> header.info               100% |=========================| 4.5 kB  00:00
> 
> should be something more like
> 
> Server: stable for Fedora Linux 0.94 - 100%  4.5 kB  00:00
> 
> 
> Getting xine-0.9.22-0.fdr.4.0.94.i386.rpm
> xine-0.9.22-0.fdr.4.0.94. 100% |=========================| 1.7 MB  02:11
> 
> should be something like
> 
> Getting xine-0.9.22-0.fdr.4.0.94.i386.rpm - 100%  1.7 MB  02:11

Some people (in fact lots of people) like the visual progress bar.  I
see merit on both approaches.

>   Another issue even more important to me if to not cut off long strings
> , like filenames. I want to see all of the filename so I know what it
> actually is. This can especially be a problem when there are two
> packages with very long, but similar names. I provided examples below.
> 
> iamapackagewithareallylongnam 100% |=========================| 1.7 MB  02:11
> iamapackagewithareallylongnam 100% |=========================| 1.7 MB  02:11
> 
> when the packages names would be something like
> 
> iamapackagewithareallylongname-0.2.1.i386.rpm
> iamapackagewithareallylongname-devel-0.2.1.i386.rpm

This is a fine point.  The tradeoff is uniformatity.  Which of the
following two is harder/easier tp quickly interpret?  Again, I see
both sides.

header.info               100% |=========================| 4.5 kB  00:00
xine-0.9.22-0.fdr.4.0.94. 100% |=========================| 1.7 MB  02:11

Server: stable for Fedora Linux 0.94 - 100%  4.5 kB  00:00
Getting xine-0.9.22-0.fdr.4.0.94.i386.rpm - 100%  1.7 MB  02:11

>   An alternative suggestion with minor differences is to clone the wget
> progess bar if you choose to keep a progress bar. I provided examples
> below
> 
> |===================  |
> 
> might be changed to something like
> 
> [===================> ]

OK, might we be getting a tad picky now?

>   I know other programs use progress bars and all, but I am looking for
> something that fits with the way yum was and adds to it nicely, instead
> of just hacking something in.

More flies with honey, my friend :)

> Yum has out of the box been fairly non-verbose, with the exception
> of listing all the headers downloaded.  Which brings up the point of
> on the first run there can be hundreds of lines if not thousands. A
> method should figured out that is a much less verbose default, and
> maybe making the current behavior show up at a higher debug level.

I agree that would produce less output, and for many people it would
do what they want.  However, changing the log level of certain
messages as a function of machine/server state seems to introduce
great potential for confusion.  I (personally) don't think that's a
worthwhile tradeoff.
					-Michael
-- 
  Michael Stenner                       Office Phone: 919-660-2513
  Duke University, Dept. of Physics       mstenner at phy.duke.edu
  Box 90305, Durham N.C. 27708-0305



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