RedHat 9 Updates (and CD) Options

[quint]

Julia,

This was the file I used for "Fedora Core1":

Fedora

...but all I did was this:

su
password
rpm -Uvh apt-0.5.5cnc7-1.fr.i386.rpm

HTH.

[teacher]

I'll give it a look after I go reinstall Fedora.

[Owyn]

Got back and have been reviewing the various update options.

The options (for RedHat) break down as follows:

1)up2date: Native for RedHat9. A bit complicated to set up. Biggest restriction is limited access (single system demo account) and fees. Service may not be available in the future. Proprietary service. Works well once installed. Not available for Fedora.

2)apt-rpm: Requires apt-enabled repositories as sources. Simple to install (no dependency issues) on RH9 or Fedora Core 1. Original OS images not apt enabled, instrtuctions available at link for creating apt enabled CDs. Repositories available on net for easy upgrade. May need broadband for large updates. Managing arbritary collections of rpms difficult.

3)apt4rpm: Addresses the issues of creating repositories from arbritary collections of rpms, including original installation Cds. This makes it easy to install new, missed, or updated apps. Easy to use local sources in preference to net. Tricky to get installed on vanilla RH9 system (lots of dependencies).

4)yum: Fedora's replacement for up2date. Originally from Yellow Dog Linux. Has been effectively deployed in enterprises. Similar design objectives to apt4rpm. May be the best long term solution.

5)RedCarpet: A very good (currently) free service for upgrade of Gnome and Ximian packages.

This article gives a good comparison of some of the tools. It is a bit out of date but is a good introduction to the subject.

-----------
Past the witching hour. Next installment, getting Yum to work in RH9 and Fedora.

[teacher]

Installed without a hitch Quint!

Fedora definitely has some nice choices in Gnome for wall papers and screensavers. It has been a long time since I have seen flying toasters and bouncing cows - like 10 - 15 years - but it is fun to see. I now have a flower garden on my desktop! No allergies this way!

[Owyn]

yum (RedHat 9)
==============

Updating your system to latest for installed known packages can be almost trivial with yum.

1)Download Stable for Red Hat Linux 9: yum-2.0.4-1.noarch.rpm (Check the link above to see if a later version is available).

2)Install yum
# su
# rpm -ivh yum-2.0.4-1.noarch.rpm

3)Update your system
# yum update

I actually did it in several more steps. I wanted to test out the various functions and get a better feel of how yum would work in production use. More about that in a moment.

My conclusions after finishing the tests remained the same as before, yum may be the best long term package manager. But it is not there yet.

The biggest advantage of yum is that it's database is composed of a small header list file (header.info) and individual .hdr files for each package. The .hdr files are extracted from the .rpm files. When a package is added or changed only the header list and package .hdr files are downloaded/updated. Contrast this with downloading relatively massive monolithic rpm databases each time for sometimes only a few (or worse no) changes.

There are other advantages, see Yum: Support/Questions for details.

The biggest disadvantage of Yum (at this time) is that it does not support arbritary file: based repositiories. It is not the best choice for dial up users. The time saved in updating the headers can easily be lost by the time required to download copies of rpms which are allready available from an installation CD. This is likely to change.

If I can get file URLs working sanely it would mean anyone could use it w/o a server at all.

This does not mean that Yum can not be customized. In fact it is used that way today in production at Duke, Fermi Labs, etc. Again. quoting from Support/Questions

Q. Why not use Current and up2date?
A. I don't like the client-server model of Current and up2date. It means you have to deal with a custom server and the server side then becomes the bottleneck. Using a normal ftp/http server means almost anyone can do it. If I can get file URLs working sanely it would mean anyone could use it w/o a server at all. Also up2date doesn't support multiple repositories. Which makes it a horrible pain in my environment. We have many departments using the same core linux installation but they each have their own custom packages they like to install. Rather than have to put up with lots of requests to have them put into the main tree so automatic updates work, I can just tell them to set up their own Yum repository and stop bothering me

See "man yum" for more details.

------------------------------------
Next installment, RedHat9 yum detail test report

[teacher]

Good review Owyn. I will have to go back into Fedora when I get home this afternoon and install it. Appreciate all your research.

[quint]

Julia,

Glad all went well...usually, I like KDE as desktop, but Gnome in Fedora is nice!

Owyn,

Excellent reports, explanations...will try "YUM" in RH9, as I like it in Fedora, but like "Apt4RPM" as well. Decisions, decisions...

[Owyn]

Excellent reports, explanations...will try "YUM" in RH9, as I like it in Fedora, but like "Apt4RPM" as well. Decisions, decisions...

More to come. Hold on for a bit before you make your final decision.

LOL: I just got the Charles Dicken's Biography. Must be the source of my urge to serialize the story.

PS: What you have actually been using is "apt-rpm", not "apt4rpm".

[Owyn]

Good review Owyn.  I will have to go back into Fedora when I get home this afternoon and install it.  Appreciate all your research.

Hold off on the updates until I can finish the setup tests for yum on Fedora.

If you are in an hurry you can use apt-rpm immediately. It comes preconfigured with the correct sources for Fedora.

[quint]

More to come. Hold on for a bit before you make your final decision.

LOL: I just got the Charles Dicken's Biography. Must be the source of my urge to serialize the story.

PS: What you have actually been using is "apt-rpm", not "apt4rpm".

Great! Can it get any easier?

localhost:~/downloads$ su
Password:
[root@localhost downloads]# rpm -ivh yum-2.0.4-1.noarch.rpm
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
1:yum                    ########################################### [100%]
[root@localhost downloads]# yum update
Gathering header information file(s) from server(s)
Server: Red Hat Linux 9 - i386 - Base
Server: Red Hat Linux 9 - Updates
Finding updated packages
Downloading needed headers

Owyn, ready for next installment...do we get any dishes?

[Owyn]

Great! Can it get any easier?

Yes. Well better actually if not easier to setup.

Owyn, ready for next installment...do we get any dishes?

Just whetting your apetite. Trying to break this into bite sized gulps.

[Owyn]

RedHat9 yum detail test report
==========================

The steps I used to install and test yum on RedHat 9 were:

1)Download latest stable for Red Hat 9
2)Install rpm
3)Use "yum list" to create initial yum database
4)Re-run "yum list" to check time to update after initial database load
5)Use "yum list update" to check for available updates
6)Use "yum check-update" to check for available updates for installed packages on this system
7)Use "yum update" to install the updates
8)Use "yum install galeon" to install previously un-installed Galeon browser
9)Use "yum update" to test impact of new updates for un-installed ethereal package.
10)Use "yum install ethereal", "yum update", "yum remove ethereal" to test de-installing a package.
11)Test "yum install apt4rpm-0.65.2-0.noarch.rpm" to install package not defined in database.
12)Use "du" to check to see how much disk space has been used by yum.

Results as follows:

1)Download latest stable for Red Hat 9
No problems.

2)Install rpm
No problems. No dependency issues. Correct version of Python allready installed on this system.

3)Use "yum list" to create initial yum database
Worked, but took over an hour to complete. Very variable download times from yum server. Varied between 10KB and 160KB. Might have just caught the server at a bad time.

4)Re-run "yum list" to check time to update after initial database load
Worked. Time to check for updates to database less than 1 minute.

5)Use "yum list update" to check for available updates
Worked. Produced subset listing of available updates. Database checked for updates again.

6)Use "yum check-update" to check for available updates for installed packages on this system
Worked. Produced the same listing as prior step. "yum check-update" and "yum list update" are essentially the same function.

7)Use "yum update" to install the updates
Worked. Produced same confirmation list as above. Gave OK to updates, let it run over night.

8)Use "yum install galeon" to install previously un-installed Galeon browser
Started this next morning. Worked. Got a surprise. New ethereal update available. Update caused by RH errata notification I had just received in email from RedHat Network.

[root@TestRH9 yum]# yum install galeon
Gathering header information file(s) from server(s)
Server: Red Hat Linux 9 - i386 - Base
Server: Red Hat Linux 9 - Updates
Finding updated packages
Downloading needed headers
getting /var/cache/yum/updates/headers/ethereal-0-0.9.16-0.90.1.i386.hdr
ethereal-0-0.9.16-0.90.1. 100% |=========================| 7.3 kB    00:00
getting /var/cache/yum/updates/headers/ethereal-gnome-0-0.9.16-0.90.1.i386.hdr
ethereal-gnome-0-0.9.16-0 100% |=========================| 3.9 kB    00:00
Resolving dependencies
Dependencies resolved
I will do the following:
[install: galeon 1.2.7-3.i386]
Is this ok [y/N]: y
Getting galeon-1.2.7-3.i386.rpm
galeon-1.2.7-3.i386.rpm 100% |=========================| 2.4 MB    00:14
Running test transaction:
Test transaction complete, Success!
galeon 100 % done 1/1
Installed:  galeon 1.2.7-3.i386
Transaction(s) Complete

9)Use "yum update" to test impact of new updates for un-installed ethereal package.
Worked. Nothing to actually do. Ethereal not installed on this system.

10)Use "yum install ethereal", "yum update", "yum remove ethereal" to test de-installing a package.
Worked fine. Installed dependcies not removed. Need to be individually removed.

[root@TestRH9 yum]# yum install ethereal
Gathering header information file(s) from server(s)
Server: Red Hat Linux 9 - i386 - Base
Server: Red Hat Linux 9 - Updates
Finding updated packages
Downloading needed headers
Resolving dependencies
.Dependencies resolved
I will do the following:
[install: ethereal 0.9.16-0.90.1.i386]
I will install/upgrade these to satisfy the dependencies:
[deps: net-snmp 5.0.6-17.i386]
[deps: libpcap 14:0.7.2-1.i386]
Is this ok [y/N]: y
Getting ethereal-0.9.16-0.90.1.i386.rpm
ethereal-0.9.16-0.90.1.i3 100% |=========================| 3.1 MB    00:18
Getting net-snmp-5.0.6-17.i386.rpm
net-snmp-5.0.6-17.i386.rp 100% |=========================| 1.3 MB    00:07
Getting libpcap-0.7.2-1.i386.rpm
libpcap-0.7.2-1.i386.rpm  100% |=========================| 151 kB    00:00
Running test transaction:
Test transaction complete, Success!
libpcap 100 % done 1/3
net-snmp 100 % done 2/3
ethereal 100 % done 3/3
Installed:  ethereal 0.9.16-0.90.1.i386
Dep Installed:  net-snmp 5.0.6-17.i386 libpcap 14:0.7.2-1.i386
Transaction(s) Complete

[root@TestRH9 yum]# yum remove ethereal
Gathering header information file(s) from server(s)
Server: Red Hat Linux 9 - i386 - Base
Server: Red Hat Linux 9 - Updates
Finding updated packages
Downloading needed headers
Resolving dependencies
Dependencies resolved
I will do the following:
[erase: ethereal 0.9.16-0.90.1.i386]
Is this ok [y/N]: y
Running test transaction:
Test transaction complete, Success!
Erasing: ethereal 1/1
Erased:  ethereal 0.9.16-0.90.1.i386
Transaction(s) Complete

[root@TestRH9 yum]# rpm -qa | egrep net-snmp\|libpcap\|ethereal
net-snmp-5.0.6-17
libpcap-0.7.2-1

11)Test "yum install apt4rpm-0.65.2-0.noarch.rpm" to install package not defined in database.
Failed. Could not handle installation of rpm from outside of database.
Tried again with "yum install apt4rpm" same results.

[root@TestRH9 apt4rpm]# yum install apt4rpm-0.65.2-0.noarch.rpm
Gathering header information file(s) from server(s)
Server: Red Hat Linux 9 - i386 - Base
Server: Red Hat Linux 9 - Updates
Finding updated packages
Downloading needed headers
Cannot find a package matching apt4rpm-0.65.2-0.noarch.rpm
No actions to take

[root@TestRH9 apt4rpm]# yum install apt4rpm
Gathering header information file(s) from server(s)
Server: Red Hat Linux 9 - i386 - Base
Server: Red Hat Linux 9 - Updates
Finding updated packages
Downloading needed headers
Cannot find a package matching apt4rpm
No actions to take

12)Use "du" to check to see how much disk space has been used by yum.

[root@TestRH9 yum]# pwd
/var/cache/yum
[root@TestRH9 yum]# du
3948    ./base/packages
9092    ./base/headers
13144 ./base
127788  ./updates/packages
3508    ./updates/headers
131312  ./updates
144460  .

Not bad. Most of the space consumed was for the local copies of the updated/installed packages.

----------------------------
Next installment. Getting "apt4rpm" installed using "rpm" and "yum"

[quint]

Bravo! Owyn, excellent! Have been in RedHat 9.0 all day...testing, updating, manipulating, deciding; I now am leaning toward "YUM", as an update/upgrade source. Like you said, the initial "yum list" can take several minutes, thereafter it flies! Especially enjoy the way it makes known what it is doing...and I see what you mean about just updating the headers - a fine little application...thanks!

[Owyn]

I now am leaning toward "YUM", as an update/upgrade source.

You could do worse. At this point you have a viable option to replace up2date if you have broadband. And with a lot less setup.

The story is far from finished however. It doesn't stop until we have taken a good look at all the options.

We also have to take a "fresh" look at things.

Heck, with luck I could drag this out for the whole week.

[quint]

Heck, with luck I could drag this out for the whole week.   

[Owyn]

ROFL**2

[Owyn]

I have been browsing the Yum mailing lists. Found this draft Yum HowTo.

http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/General/yum_H...HOWTO.html#toc3

Part way through it but seems pretty close to what I have observed so far.

--------------------
Later:
Very much a work in progress. Lots of unwritten sections. Worth bookmarking for later.

[teacher]

I like how simple yum is. Just downloaded it from Owyn's link. Then I ran it. Since I just installed RH this morning, it is flying going through all the updates.

[Owyn]

From the yum mailing list

For a variety of reasons, I've written an article on yum that might
serve as an introduction.  It is NOT a manual, NOT a HOWTO.  It's a bit
long (but fairly complete). People who were looking for relatively
simple non-man-page non-HOWTO documentation are encouraged to give it a
look, and it is of course open for comments and corrections as well.

It has lots of examples (and more are welcomed).  The last couple of
sections will likely be cloned into the HOWTO soon as well, finishing it
off.

Note the OPL.  You can copy and use it as you wish, as long as you don't
resell it for a profit without dickering with me first.

See:

  http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/General/yum_a...le/yum_article/

rgb

Well written. Gives you a lot of the background on why to use yum.