APT, Yum and Red Carpet

[Hans Deragon]

Jef Spaleta wrote:
> Hans Deragon wrote:
> 
> 
>>However, apt has synaptic available as GUI. I am not aware of a GUI 
>>for yum. For a desktop machine, a GUI is a must.
> 
> 
> It's deceptive to think just about end-user oriented feature sets, when
> deciding on future development paths.  One could argue that yum has a
> technical advantage in terms of long term development inside rhl,
> because its using the same python bindings that the current redhat tools
> use to interact with the rpmdb. There is a definite development
> advantage with code reuse.  So if you want the redhat tools to be
> repository aware, make use of the technology that fits best with the
> redhat tools.  

apt/synaptic is already developped by debian users.  It is code already 
reused from another distribution.  But you have a point to some extent.

> One could also argue that the redhat tools should be pitched, but anyone
> arguing that would have to be pretty persuasive, or would have to have
> really good timing to change the momentum surrounding the development of
> the redhat tools (like anaconda and r-c-p).
> 
> The long term solution is of course bribing the repository technology
> developers into sitting down over some pizza,beer and KK doughnuts and
> hashing out a repository metadata standard so repos are as tool neutral
> as possible.

But in the short term, yum is now part of severn.  Since it will be the 
default with the system, it will eventually become the standard.  As 
soon as RH offers the chance for people to create repositories, the 
number of public repositories will explode.  By the time we decide for a 
standard, yum repositories would have become the defacto standard.

Unless, we remove it and do not include anything except up2date for the 
next release...

> But there is a deeper issue in your comment. For a nontechnical user's
> desktop machine a GUI is a must...that is surely a truism. But now you
> have to ask yourself the question...what is redhat's timeline for
> seriously targeting non technical home desktops?  I personally don't
> think this little hiccup about which choice of repo technology gets
> bolted into rhl is going to matter on the same timescale of other
> relevant issues which would make linux a prefered solution in the
> mainstream nontechnical desktop market. 

Red Hat developped up2date-gnome.  If they spent the effort for creating 
a GUI for RHN, then it means that they identified the need for a GUI to 
install packages.  Red Hat targets semi-technical environment, not only 
tech-savy desktop users.  Business men, lawyers, accountants, offices 
could use RHL.  Secretaries would want to install software, but not with 
a command line.

Best regards,
Hans Deragon
--
Consultant en informatique/Software Consultant
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