[TriLUG] Yum repositories

[Ed Hill]

On Fri, 2005-08-12 at 12:22 -0400, Rick DeNatale wrote:
> On 8/12/05, Owen Berry <oberry at trilug.org> wrote:
> > Does anyone have any compatability experience with using the Dag
> > (http://dag.wieers.com/), livna (http://rpm.livna.org/) and Fedora
> > extras (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Extras) repositories for Fedora
> > RPMs? I've been using livna and fedora.us (now Fedora Extras) for a
> > while, but I'm looking for some packages for FC3 that are only on Dag's
> > repository.
> > 
> > According to the Dag FAQ, the livna and fedora.us ones are not
> > compatible with his, so I would probably have to remove those packages
> > and reinstall them. Seems like a lot of work, which I don't want to have
> > to repeat.
> >
> 
> Back when I was running RH9, I was using the Fedora legacy repo, and
> tried to use the dag repos as well.  The problem is that Fedora and
> DAG (as well as others) don't see eye to eye on version numbering. I
> had some problems with some dependency packages being replaced with
> back level versions. IIRC these came from the Fedora repos because
> they SEEMED to be newer than those in the DAG repo.
> 
> I never did figure out how to fix this.  It's one form of dependency hell.

Hi folks,

<disclaimer>
I'm a Fedora Extras volunteer, so please be aware of my bias.  ;-)
</disclaimer>

I do install packages from DAG, Livna, FreshRPMs, etc. especially for
things like mplayer, xmms*, xine, macromedia flash, etc.

To avoid problems, I only run a system-wide 'yum update' against the
"official" Fedora and Fedora Extras repos.  The idea is to minimize the
chances of installing a bunch of unnecessary and potentially conflicting
RPMs:

 1) install the yum conf file(s) for the repo(s) you want to use in 
    /etc/yum.repos.d/ and *temporarily* mark them as enabled

 2) "rpm --import ${URL_FOR_THE_KEY}" for each of the above repos

 3) yum install the packages you want

 4) disable the repos from (1) before doing a system-wide yum update

This usually works nicely for me because all the packages are in
addition to the ones provided by Fedora and Fedora Extras -- they don't
replace generally don't conflict with anything.


So, if anyone has software that they would like to maintain in Fedora
Extras, please see:

  http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Extras

were the process for becoming an FE maintainer is documented.  And, if
you contact me off-list, I'll do everything I can to help fellow
TriLUG-ers get started including sponsorship, package reviews, etc.

- Ed "in FE-pimp-mode" Hill  ;-)

-- 
Edward H. Hill III, PhD
office:  MIT Dept. of EAPS;  Rm 54-1424;  77 Massachusetts Ave.
             Cambridge, MA 02139-4307
emails:  eh3 at mit.edu                ed at eh3.com
URLs:    http://web.mit.edu/eh3/    http://eh3.com/
phone:   617-253-0098
fax:     617-253-4464