dnf versus yum

[Till Maas]

On Sun, Jan 05, 2014 at 01:06:16PM -0600, Chris Adams wrote:
> Once upon a time, Reindl Harald <h.reindl at thelounge.net> said:
> > http://akozumpl.github.io/dnf/cli_vs_yum.html#dnf-erase-kernel-deletes-all-packages-called-kernel
> 
> Frankly, that's a dumb "feature" to have the package manager know
> "magic" things about some names.  Why is it dumb?  Because some people
> then depend on magic "features".  Is this "feature" even documented
> anywhere?  I don't see it in the yum man page for example.
[...]
> This is Unix; system programs are expected to "do what I say".  Don't
> try to code "do what I mean" into it (because what you mean is probably
> different from what I mean).
> 
> We've had kernel variant packages in the past, like kernel-smp and
> kernel-PAE; are all variants supposed to be handled magically?  What if
> there's a new variant?  Would not handling it in the package manager
> magic be a release-blocker bug?

Kernel packages are special with yum, because multiple packages are
installed by default. With your argumentation 'dnf update kernel' should
remove the current kernel when a new kernel is installed. Is this really
what you expect and what dnf should do? Currently it installs a new
kernel without removing the old one as I know it from yum.

Regards
Till