I would not quote anyone since the same point is being discussed simultaneously on three different threads. One argument that I constantly hear is that the packages in the Fedora repositories are so frequently updated that it is not advisable to keep a high value for 'metadata_expire' to ensure that Yum does not miss out on any recently available packages/updates. Although this sounds nice, but there is an inherent flaw in this argument, which becomes underlined when one uses it on slow networks. In places like India, Bangladesh, and maybe Africa too, not too many people are blessed with an Internet connection that can allow them to download the whole package list everytimebefore doing anything worthwhile with Yum (and Pirut). The fact is that _just_ installing a package is much more important than installing the _latest_ version of it. eg., my father does not really care if he uses version 2.2.3 of package Foo or version 2.2.5 of Foo. If he needs Bar, and can not do 'yum install bar' quickly enough simply because Yum needs to download the whole list of available updates, and find out whether Foo 2.2.5 is available or not, before starting to actually download and install Bar, then I am sure he would not like it. One more thing I heard is that people do not understand the 'apt-get update' and 'apt-get upgrade' dance. First of all someone who is using the command line interface and not the GUI, even when the GUI is available, is not a complete newbie. If he has the acumen to remember the 'cd', 'clear', 'ls', 'sudo yum', etc. dance then why can not he/she remember the 'apt-get update' and 'apt-get upgrade' dance? Even if it is still a problem, then consider that we have yum-updatesd downloading update information automatically in the background, and Yum itself engineered in such a way that it will download update information after 'metadata_expires' is reached. No matter how high the value of 'metadata_expires' is, this is simply not needed. If I am a newbie, and can not handle the 'apt-get update' and 'apt-get upgrade' dance, I will simply ask yum-updatesd to do the job for me. Provided, ofcourse, I have the bandwidth to do it efficiently. Otherwise, if I know my way around or have bandwidth issues, then I shall simply switch of yum-updatesd and resort to the apt-get update' and 'apt-get upgrade' dance. Secondly, since most newbies are prone to use GUI tools, if Pirut has a nice icon (like Synaptic) that prominently announces: "look for updates", then I do not think people have to remember any dance sequence at all. As far as I have seen, Ubuntu users (mostly newbies not knowing what 'ls' and 'clear' are) are so happy with their distribution simply because Synaptic precisely does this. I have not seen a single Pirut user who is even marginally content. If such a feature was removed to help any newbie, then it has surely failed to do so. Before finishing let me give my own example. The only repositories that I use are Fedora's Core, Updates and Extras; and ATRPMs. All these are mirrored locally on my LAN, and I do not use the upstream repositories ever, except for keeping the local ones updated. I do not run yum-updatesd too. On such a set-up when I start Pirut, it takes 15 seconds to show the initial window, which is the 'browse' (leftmost) tab. Funnily it has no package or category listed. When I click the 'list' (rightmost) tab it takes a further 60 seconds to show the package list. Everytime I change tabs and come back to 'list' it takes the same amount of time as before. Since I do not use a US English desktop the tabs might not be named exactly 'browse' and 'list', but that is what they look like from the local language traslation. I am basically an end-use when it comes to Yum and/or Pirut, but I know Python and do some programming and would like to help out regarding this if required. Regards, Debarshi -- GPG key ID: 63D4A5A7 Key server: pgp.mit.edu -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
