1st Draft: Package Management with RPM Update

[Rahul Sundaram]

On 09/28/2009 08:14 AM, Douglas Silas Hensley wrote:

>>
> If you have the chance to look over the much-modified Part I, I'd love
> to hear it. Aside from a few small things, it's completely updated (with
> a completely new chapter on PackageKit):
> 

> http://dsilas.fedorapeople.org/Deployment_Guide/en-US/html-single/index.html#pt-pkg-management

Much better. Few more notes:

All screenshots should use the default theme (and font)

RPM is both the name of the low level tool as well as the format. So
when you use the term, it would be useful to note the context.
PackageKit is the underlying framework. Do not confuse it with the
frontends (gnome-packagekit or kpackagekit).

Tolerant option is a no-op. It is only retained for backward
compatibility.  Don't mention it in the guide at all. In a multi-lib
system, you can use yum install package.arch, ex: gtk2.i386 to install
the package for a specific arch.

For package group installation, I prefer something like

# yum -v grouplist | grep -i kde

# yum install @kde-desktop

It is much easier to type and consistent with the kickstart format. @
denotes a group operation and yum can use a group id (kde-desktop)
instead of the full name.

Yum plugins should be covered.

You might want to add a note on gpg signatures in the first section
itself. It is critically important that users understand the security
reasons for it.

For creating a repo, createrepo -d is much better since it creates the
sqlite database which speeds up yum operations. Delta RPM (presto
plugin, createrepo options) can be explained in more detail.

RPM section should warn against using --nodeps. Cover the difference
between rpmsave and rpmnew
(http://www-uxsup.csx.cam.ac.uk/~jw35/docs/rpm_config.html)

That's it for now.

Rahul