On Sat, 2006-09-23 at 17:45 -0800, John Andersen wrote:
On Saturday 23 September 2006 16:03, Joachim Schrod wrote:
To start such a list, what can update tools do, resp. what are their capabilities: -- support more than one repository (i.e., official SUSE and non-official like packman) -- run in batch mode (i.e., as cron job) -- check interactively for updates but don't install them -- cron job to check for updates but don't install them -- download updates once for a set of systems in a network -- memory consumption -- CPU time per update -- support of patch rpms, to reduce update times -- integration into desktop environment (KDE, GNOME) -- are dependencies installed during upgrades (i.e., if one updates a package, and the new package has new and uninstalled dependencies -- are these dependencies automatically installed as well). -- officially supported by SUSE, or an independent community effort -- probability to be supported for the next 2-3 years
So other than the last one, the tool we appear to be abandoning (Yast Online Update - YOU) filled all the requirements.
Not the first one. YOU only ever supported one repository. The package manager could have several, but YOU had its own format. This also meant that if you installed a package that had received updates, you first installed the original version and then the update.
So other than making work for a bunch of Gnome re-treads, why the big push to this current mess?
I can't speak for the developers, but IMHO the old YOU had to go sooner or later, no matter what. The new tools can handle all kinds of repository formats, and - more importantly - it can be remote controlled, so it's easier to administer large numbers of machines Oh, and I installed 10.2 Factory yesterday. In my opinion, the big problems have been solved. The package manager is actually fast now