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”!
I agree with you 100%. They should have waited until package kit was in better shape. One especially nice feature of package kit it the constant "waiting for other tasks to complete" function if it is searching for package lists. They could at least given us pirut back for those who want it. At least pirut worked! i will give yumex a shot though.
I think package kit is a Microsoft Windows update it is about as useful. I have no idea why version 0.something is even included as a default.
I just "ugpraded" to Fedora 9 from 8, and this new packagekit software is crap. The first time I ran it, it always said "no results were found" on every category so I couldn't install anything. I also noticed that it's missing results when I search that I do see when running yum. I'm gonna try to remove packagekit and restore pirut...
Let me know how it works to uninstall Packagekit and install Pirut I couldn't find a Fedora 9 version of Pirut.
Let me correct that I found the RPM of Pirut FC 9 on one site but it downloaded as an empty, zero byte file and when I went back it wasn't there. Made me think I was going crazy so I went to my download directory and yes it was there as a zero byte file "pirut-1.3.30-2.fc9.src.rpm" downloaded May 14.
I then searched all over the place and could only find the Fedora 8 version of Pirut "pirut-1.3.28-1.fc8.src.rpm" and below.
http://ia64.koji.fedoraproject.org/packages/pirut/1.3.30/2.fc9/noarch/pirut-1.3.30-2.fc9.noarch.rpm
Install it with rpm -ivh pirut-1.3.30-2.fc9.noarch.rpm
It might need comps-extras as a dependency
(sorry for the late comment, I forgot to check back)
I just installed another Fedora 9 system and I'm going to replace packagekit again. It was quite easy to do, I just uninstalled it, got the RPM for pirut, and installed that and everything worked. It looks like AutoStatic did the same thing.
Just installed FC9 and find package-kit to be a loss. Agree 100% with opinions so far expressed. May go back to Slackware.
hi!
i have used packageskit for about 5 minutes and then i was so pissed that i have searched for alternatives.
f9 brings a yum frontend, called yumex (yum install yumex). it is really great! check it out!
btw: although i want pirut back...
I am appalled at PackageKit and the nits at Fedora for removing useful software like pirut. PackageKit is the most tacky install program I've seen, and coming from a BSD background, I prefer cleaner, nicer interfaces (like sysinstall).
Better than that, PackageKit's just dumped a core on me. That's the fifth today. Stability is the worst yet. I'm contemplating going back to OpenSUSE.