[Yum] Feature request(s)

[Christopher Charles Weis]

My original request was misleading. 

I want yum to be able to do everything it already does _and_ do 
repackaging... (keep reading)

To achieve this, yum either needs to learn how to do repackaging (which 
I'm working on), _or_ yum needs to offer a "retrieve" option, allowing 
the admin. to manually install the RPMs with the --repackage option.  I 
think we all agree that the former is the better method.

But there are many reasons, of which we don't all agree with, that a 
"retrieve" option could be useful.  I think that rpm will regularly have a 
new "--blah" option/use that yum doesn't have (yet).  Naturally, a few 
users want to use "--blah" with yum and can't, so they'll always want yum 
to download the packages so they can then use "--blah" manually.  I think 
any of the reasons given on the list so far could be substituted for 
"--blah", regardless of their usefulness.

-- Can it be done in better ways?  Yes.  
-- Is it an abuse/waste of technology to make yum do things that tools 
like wget are so good at?  Probably.  
-- Is it easier than using wget?  Probably, depending on skillset.  
-- Is anyone forcing me to use yum?  No.  
-- Is anyone keeping me from adding this functionality to yum?  No.

My suggestion: if you don't like the idea of a "retrieve" option, don't 
code/use it.  If you think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread and you 
like writing python better than writing shell scripts around wget, go for 
it.  Worst case scenario, we have a semi-useful feature and one of us puts 
in a little quality time with python.

~Chris

NOTE: wrapping wget in a PERL script rather than a shell script is 
completely unacceptable and should be strongly discouraged.  :-)



 On Wed, 8 Oct 2003, Jeremy Katz wrote:

> On Tue, 2003-10-07 at 17:28, Christopher C. Weis wrote:
> > 2) The ability to download, but not install, RPMs, using Yum.
> 
> To throw my $0.02 out there for the heck of it.  
> 
> I think this is an option that has very little use.  FTP clients, web
> browsers, and mirroring programs all exist for a reason.  I have yet to
> see a convincingly good reason as to why a package updater should
> replicate this functionality.
> 
> I've heard a few reasons, and all of them seem ... questionable, at
> least to me.  Here's the sample of the ones I remember:
> 1) "I want to evaluate the package before I install it" -- I fail to see
> how having a binary package can help with that.  Downloading the src.rpm
> and diffing the contents, sure.  But not the binary RPM.  Changelogs
> don't nearly have the information you want here.
> 2) "I want to test it on another box first" -- Why not use yum on the
> other box and download it and test it there.  
> 3) "I don't trust the code which installs packages" -- Then stop using
> it.
> 4) "Other programs that update packages have it" -- Some of them have
> also corrupted rpmdbs in the past, that doesn't mean it's a good idea ;)
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Jeremy
> 
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