[rhelv5-list] packaging question

["Derek T. Yarnell" <derek umiacs umd edu>]

I have since way back in 6.2/7 era till RHEL4 used the @Everything then
parsed back out the packages that i didn't want.  Well the problem with
this now is that if you add additional yum repositories in the kickstart
file they will install everything out of them too. Well this isn't
really what I want.

Now this being said, I started to re-look at adding package groups
defined within the comps-*.xml files.  This is all fine, but now there
are plenty of optional packages in most groups that I would like to make
sure are included, must I add each one to the list to get installed
(lame :/) or is there a magic --optional flag to %packages or something
that would not just all the mandatory and default packages but install
the optional ones too?

Are other people doing this any different?  Just seems like while redhat
package management is good, selecting and knowing what packages you are
going to get installed is very annoying.

Thanks.

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Derek T. Yarnell
University of Maryland
Institute for Advanced Computer Studies
derek umiacs umd edu