[Yum] First experiences with Yum

[Jos Vos]

Hi,

After reading about Yum on the RHL beta mailing list and experimenting
with apt-rpm, I decided to try Yum.  Here are my questions and
comments (I'm using RHL 9 as both the server- and client-platform,
using the yum-2.0-1 rpm found on the Yum web pages):

-  The man page of yum suggests that the -z flag will compress the
   header info, but it seems that this always happens and that the
   -z flag effectively is a no-op.

-  I want to force a priority sequence for my Yum servers, so that
   packages of a higher prio server do *always* take precedence over
   packages of a lower prio server, regardless the version numbers.

   I assumed "pkgpolicy=last" would do this, but it seems to work only
   partly: when a new package is installed, it indeed takes the one
   from the higher prio server, regardless how the version compare.
   But if a package is already installed, it doesn't upgrade (in my
   case this means downgrade) to the version of the higher prio server.

   I can't really understand this policy, as in this way client
   systems using the same Yum servers end up with different package
   sets (versions), dependent on the time a package was installed.
   This is an unwanted behaviour, IMHO, as systems like Yum should
   ensure a uniform set of client systems (except for what packages
   are installed, but this can be tweaked with special packages).

-  Running "yum install ..." sometimes results in a segmentation fault,
   but doing it again works fine then.  Sometimes it also hangs, but
   this is a known problem with rpm (rm -f /var/lib/__db* ...).

-  Kernel "upgrades": Yum installs the kernel (i.s.o. upgrading it),
   which is fine, but this seems to be a built-in feature.  Can I also
   do this with other packages (like the "allow-duplicated" in apt-rpm)?

-  Making the new kernel the default should be an option, I think.
   See also the remark about scripting below, as I would like to see
   this done in an external script or Python module, instead of
   having this as built-in code.

-  When I rename a server id in /etc/yum.conf, the old cache info
   (with the old server id) never seems to be removed, not even
   with "yum clean all".

-  RFE: I would like to be able to run scripts before or after rpm
   actions being done (like the LUA scripts can do in apt-rpm).
   I know this is Python and it should be probably pretty easy to
   add myself, but maybe this can be made a generic feature?

In general, I like that the code being *much* smaller than apt-rpm
(why is this so extremely huge...) and more accessible (as it is
Python), but I think a few more features would make it better suited
for enterprise-level use.

Thanks,

--
--    Jos Vos <jos at xos.nl>
--    X/OS Experts in Open Systems BV   |   Phone: +31 20 6938364
--    Amsterdam, The Netherlands        |     Fax: +31 20 6948204