status of up2date and rhn-applet

[Jeremy Katz]

On Sat, 2005-11-26 at 01:01 -0500, Dave Jones wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 26, 2005 at 12:54:23AM -0500, Jeremy Katz wrote:
>  > On Sat, 2005-11-26 at 00:48 -0500, Dave Jones wrote:
>  > > On Sat, Nov 26, 2005 at 12:39:07AM -0500, Jeremy Katz wrote:
>  > >  > On Fri, 2005-11-25 at 10:54 +0100, Joachim Frieben wrote:
>  > >  > > "up2date-gnome" has a very clear, informative interface. You start with a
>  > >  > > channel windows that allows you review the available channels and to make
>  > >  > > your choice. Very nice, indeed. 
>  > >  > 
>  > >  > Why would you want to not download updates from all repositories you
>  > >  > have configured?  Or at least see what's available.  The fact that the
>  > >  > updates come from multiple repositories is a detail that I don't think
>  > >  > users really want to / should need to care about.
>  > > 
>  > > The last time it happened to me, when yum fails to contact one repo,
>  > > a 'yum update' fails completely. Ie, it fails for every repo, instead
>  > > of downloading updates from the repos that it _could_ contact.
>  > > 
>  > > If current yum has been fixed to work in the face of adversity,
>  > > then I agree, otherwise, the ability to easily disable a broken repo
>  > > is useful.
>  > 
>  > How do you know that updating when a repository is broken is safe,
>  > though?  If you have a local repository which shadows the main repo but
>  > with packages with config changes, going back to base could completely
>  > break your system.  While punt to the user may be sufficient for you or
>  > for me (or pretty much everyone on this list), I don't think that it is
>  > for the "typical" end-user.  
> 
> it's arguable that that configuration is also not 'typical end-user' ;-)
> Really, I think if someone goes far enough to setup shadow repos, they
> should know what their doing enough to figure out what to do when
> repo breakage occurs.

I also worry about third party repos which change out core
packages :-/  

There are just things a number of things which can go wrong/strange if
you have repositories not available, which is why things do what they do
now[1]

Jeremy

[1] Okay, I'm all but certain that pup needs to give a better error
message when this occurs right now, but that's a side point ;-)