DNF: Only one kernel-devel package allowed?

[Andre Robatino]

Richard Shaw <hobbes1069 <at> gmail.com> writes:

> Added this to dnf.conf:
> installonlypkgs=kernel,kernel-devel
> 
> 
> And now it's not removing kernel-devel... I'm not sure if the kernel one
is needed (not sure where the defaults come from and if they're overwritten
when you specify it yourself).

I experimented with this on Rawhide, which gets frequent kernel updates. It
appears that if you add the installonlypkgs line but don't include kernel,
it will upgrade that rather than install. Also, if you add kernel-devel, it
will unconditionally remove the oldest version of kernel-devel, even if
you're running the oldest kernel, so kernel and kernel-devel will get out of
sync. Yum-deprecated keeps kernel and kernel-devel in sync regardless of
which one you're running.

Applicable bugs:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1062997
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1079906
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1226402

In https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1226402#c1 Josh Boyer is
opposed to dnf treating kernel-devel the same as yum, but IMO the vast
majority of people with kernel-devel installed are using it for compiling
3rd-party modules, and that's what they want. There should at least be an
option for making dnf behave the same.