can't install debug rpm with yum.

[Sean]

On Wed, 07 Jun 2006 21:52:39 -0400
seth vidal <skvidal at linux.duke.edu> wrote:

> The problem you're poorly diagnosing isn't really in yum. The crux of
> the problem is out of sync mirrors being in the mirror list. That's a
> problem we're working on now by taking some work that another project
> has done to check the status of a mirror to make sure that the metadata
> it has matches the metadata that the mirror master has.
> 
> To give you a useful analogy to the situation you're experiencing: This
> is like complaining that firefox is a bad browser b/c all of the
> websites you're visiting are down. OR complaining that you are riding a
> bad bike b/c all the roads are closed.

Seth,

I hear what you're saying and maybe there is an element of that in my
mini rant.   However, you didn't address the crappiness of the error
message of the example I gave.  And while blaming the mirror list for
the problem may be technically correct, why does yum not have a fallback
for a situation that is bound to happen again?  Why is it so brittle and
susceptible to such a problem?  At least firefox gives you a good error
message when it can't reach a site, and it then takes that incorrect
URL and turns it into a search that hopefully will find you the correct
location.  See the difference?  yum just gives up too easily and puts
the burden back on the user to decipher a POS error message.

Another issue, which perhaps you'll blame on rpm, is that whenever a user
enables a repo, that config file will not be replaced by rpm.  So the next
time a URL fix is pushed out in a /etc/yum.repos.d/xx.conf file, user
intervention is required because that config will no longer be automatically
updated.  Is there a way to configure yum without having to change the
config files that also hold the repository URLs ?  I tried using yum.conf
to enable a repo instead, but then you get:

"Repository xyz is listed more than once in the configuration"

Sean