We will soon be at FC4 and system-config-packages will still fall short

[Jean Francois Martinez]

First of all it is still impossible to see everything of what is
installed in the distribution or everything of what is available.

Second: Package names are presented in a haphazard order.  Today
I needed to install openmotif (on an FC3 box) and since I didn't
want to go hunting on 4 CDs (and then fight dependencies) I tried
using system-config-packages.  Finding it was made much harder
first by the need to guess in what group it was but also by
the fact package names were not ordered.  At the very least we
should be able to see the non-optional packages of a group (in
alphabetical order) followed by the optional packages in optional
order.

System-config-packages really needs, I would say, requires,
an option allowing to see everything instead of just a subset of the
distribution like presently.  Yes, I filed an RFE a loooong
time ago.  But FC4 will be still another release of Fedora
where most of the distribution is not visible from
system-config-packages so the only solution is use RPM from
the command line, while fighting dependencies and trying to
find what CD has the required package.  

BTW: the people at www.aurox.org have added
the "see everything" option to both system-config-packages
and anaconda.


-- 
Jean Francois Martinez <jfm512 at free.fr>