May 2008 Archives

Packagekit and Fedora 9 Updates Working Well

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Well I must say that for the updates Packagekit seems an improvement so far. Packagekit seems like is silent as it’s supposed to and so far handles dependencies very well even though I have only had my first initial couple of updates.

 

When updating the Fedora 9 OS Packagekit has multiple updates selected for several software packages at one time I and would like to know how I can select multiple software packages when selecting new software .in “Add/Remove Software”.

 

I’m anxious to see this full package in place they are speaking of in such glowing turns all over the internet. I hope this isn’t premature hype like I’m starting to see too much of in this industry lately.

 

I thought I saw where the full package will be pushed out hopefully in a couple of weeks through the normal update path, I am anxious to see how it works fully!

 

I still feel they could have helped bridge the old with the new better until the new was ready to fully roll as the primary with both Pirut still as the primary with Packagekit available to get acquainted with in the wings.

Why was Pirut replaced as the default front end in Fedora 9 by an unfinished package like PackageKit? I understand the current move from under the wing of Red Hat and more into the Fedora community with Fedora releases but if these are the types of decisions that will be made, oh my!


Does this mean the Fedora community will start making decisions to new projects just because you have a bias or dislike of certain portions of an older working project even if you don't have a working viable solution?


There is no way that PackageKit should have been included in its current state as the default software package handler with Pirut totally removed.


I like a lot of what I see in PackageKit as far as being able to go to the software projects home page with a simple click, the GUI looks nice, seeing what files will be written out or modified and the fact that you can go click inside of that box and save the list with a copy or paste for whatever reasons you feel you may need are good features.


I understand it talks to all of the back end package managers like apt, yum etc.., but the usability is not there yet. Why place it as the default package manager for Fedora 9, a major OS release?


You have negated any good that PackageKit does with its release while its in its beginning development stages. PackageKit is in a position it doesn't yet belong and you have put up blatant obstacles to using other front-end package mangers without uninstalling PackageKit.


The immediate usability issues I have are:


- I have to tell it to refresh application lists, this should be default or a more readily identifiable option. I first went through a few sub-categories getting a ”Query produced no results” type of error before I started looking for an option to view software I knew should be there.


  • I found no way to select multiple software packages then say install and walk away. You have to sit there and click one package Hit Install Watch it download and install select next package and repeat. I really hope I'm missing something here I do not have the time to install all of the packages I like to use one at a time after my initial install.


  • When trying to install “pirut” from the command line using yum I get the following message:


#yum install pirut

Loaded plugins: refresh-packagekit

Existing lock /var/run/yum.pid: another copy is running as pid 10193.

Another app is currently holding the yum lock; waiting for it to exit...

Another app is currently holding the yum lock; waiting for it to exit...

Another app is currently holding the yum lock; waiting for it to exit...

Another app is currently holding the yum lock; waiting for it to exit...

Setting up Install Process

Parsing package install arguments

Package gnome-packagekit-0.1.12-12.20080430.fc9.x86_64 already installed and latest version

Nothing to do


I found the updated version of PackageKit but had some environmental/dependency issues installing the “tar.gz” and the “rpm”. I didn't want to deal with updating what someone has decide to be the default package manager for Fedora 9 when I had other things to do so in installed “Yumex”.


I did however use the install one package at a time PackageKit to install Yumex. I then started installing the software I want by clicking on them one at a time in Yumex and then processing the whole lot of them instead of with “pirut” selecting all and deselecting a few packages a several dozen more clicks per session than using Pirut. This is still better than installing packages one at a time (that's so MS Windows) with PackageKit.


Since this is installed on the system that will be my game server and I'm playing around with it now I'm seriously thinking about installing one of the other Linux Distros and then moving to the Distro I choose with my web servers.


Especially disturbing is the fact that they said that PackageKit would be an alternative and Pirut can work side by side with PackageKit but they have removed all of the Fedora 9 Pirut files from the repositories and the lower versions of Pirut conflict with PackageKit!


Well time to finish installing packages with......”Yumex”!