Hello list! As I did not like the SuSE online update very much, I wrote something on my own: fou4s - Fast Online Update for SuSE Features: ========= * Tested with 7.1, 7.2 and 7.3 (automatic release detection) * Gets the package descriptions from ftp server (currently hardcoded to ftp.gwdg.de, but you can change this in the script). This is on demand only and not every time. Only changed/new package descriptions are actually downloaded. * Compares downloaded description files with installed RPMs and prints differences * Support for external http URLs (e.g. NVidia drivers) * Downloads and installs the RPMs using wget (with continue option - aborted downloads will be resumed) * Everything except real upgrade can be done as normal user. Bugs/Missing features: ====================== * Does not verify GPG signature (sorry, I forgot and it is too late today) This will be in the next version. * Package descriptions can't be downloaded with set ftp_proxy (is unset automatically) * User has to call SuSEconfig manually after update * No selection - you have to get all patches or none (workaround: do as normal user and put "su -c" in front of the rpm command - then enter a wrong password for the packages you don't want) * Update descriptions are very ugly - The text in the package descriptions is so badly formatted, that I would have to do some pretty printing to make it user-friendly readable. * Package description update tries to get update/patches/* and update/patches.cont/* - the patches.cont directory does not exist for every distribution version (e.g. 7.1), but for others it contains most of the packages (7.3) You will therefore get a harmless error during package list retrieval. Screenshot ========== markus@phoenix:~/fou4s-0.0.1> ./fou4s fou4s v0.0.1 (c) 2002 Markus Gaugusch [markus@gaugusch.at] usage: fou4s [options] options: update Get new package list from FTP server and exit upgrade Compare package list with RPM db and get/install packages donothing Compare package list with RPM db and do nothing else (for testing) -v Verbose mode The options "update" and "upgrade" are borrowed from apt-get, therefore the unusual style without leading dash. Download ======== You can get it at http://www.gaugusch.at/linux/fou4s-0.0.1.tar.bz2 Quick Start =========== tar xIvf fou4s-0.0.1.tar.bz2 cd fou4s-0.0.1 ./fou4s update ./fou4s donothing -v ./fou4s donothing # (to get a more readable output) ./fou4s upgrade # (cross your fingers, if you are root ;) Try as non-root first, if you are unsure what happens. Package comparison takes its time!! Be patient. On my machine it takes about 35 seconds to check all packages (without any downloads). Notes to SuSE People ==================== One thing I found out while hacking this: The openssh package description contains the wrong version number. On FTP server there is 2.9.9p2-98, but in description file there is 2.91.9p2-98. This will lead to an update every time, but I can't do anything against this :( I also noticed, that my machines did not have several updates, although the release number in the description file was higher... strange, isn't it? regards, Markus Gaugusch -- _____________________________ /"\ Markus Gaugusch ICQ 11374583 \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign markus@gaugusch.at X Against HTML Mail / \