Poll: How users use DNF

[Hedayat Vatankhah]

/*Radek Holy <rholy at redhat.com>*/ wrote on Tue, 9 Dec 2014 12:28:54 
-0500 (EST):
> Dear users of YUM and DNF,
>
> I'm writing to you regarding a request for your feedback. I would be very grateful if you could send me a brief description of how you use YUM or DNF currently or how would you like to use it. I am particularly interested in the occurrences of "dnf/yum install" calls in your scripts. What does these scripts do and what do they expect when they call the "install" command in different situations?
>
> Please share with me the use cases, not the description of the "install" command. Think twice before you share something because I believe it's not as easy as it might seem. As an example I think it might be something like:
>
> - "I call YUM install, because I want to get given packages into my system and I don't care whether it requires an upgrade or downgrade or what." or
> - "I want to get them there but it should protect me against dangerous operations like downgrades" or
> - "I often make typos, so I expect that the program knows what I mean" or
> - "it would be nice if it would literally perform the installation; if any of the packages cannot be installed because of any reason, it should fail".
>
> Not something like: "that's obvious that the install command should never downgrade packages".
>
> Please focus on *use cases*. The *real* (non-hypothetical) use cases. Not on the command's name as it might also result in a new command (while preserving the well-known install command together with an appropriate behaviour).
>
> I don't mind if you send it offlist (or to another list). I think there is no need to comment on anyone's use case. Every case is valid. Just not every case can be supported.
>
> Thank you very much in advance.
1. There are many cases that I want to install a package, but I don't 
care if it is the latest version available in the repos. So, I use '-C' 
regularly (currently doesn't work with yum, so I use dnf when I want to 
use -C to install a package without updating metadata).
2. I don't want dnf/yum/(any other software) to download data from 
internet at random times. If it wants to do it, it should do it on the 
networks I allowed, at the times I allowed. Not just when 'it can'.
3. When I want to install a package, I usually 'want' it. So, if it 
requires downgrade, I might be OK with it. I'd love to see a proposal 
with downgrades rather than saying that "sorry, this package cannot be 
installed".
4. When I ask it to install some packages, I usually want it to do it 
with minimal downloads. I don't want it to update its dependencies if 
they are already installed, unless it is strictly necessary to install 
the package. Even in that case, I'd love to be able to tell the package 
manager (e.g. using a new command, or using an option to the install 
command) to install an older version of the package so that its 
dependencies doesn't need updating (instead of updating the dependencies 
to install the latest version, install an older version which matches 
the dependencies I've already got installed).

Regards,
Hedayat

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