announcement --- planned Yum replacement now ready for user testing

[Ralf Corsepius]

On 01/02/2014 11:54 AM, Ales Kozumplik wrote:
>>
>> A question, I found the following on
>> <http://akozumpl.github.io/dnf/cli_vs_yum.html>
>>
>> "dnf erase kernel deletes all packages called kernel
>>
>> In Yum, the running kernel is spared. There is no reason to keep this in
>> DNF, the user can always specify concrete versions on the command line,
>> e.g.:
>>
>> dnf erase kernel-3.9.4"
>>
>> So if I issue 'dnf erase kernel' all kernels will be removed, and I have
>> no kernel anymore? Is that really a good thing? Should we not spare the
>> running kernel? Or is there some rationale behind this that I am missing?
>>
>> Lars
>
> Hi Lars,
>
> yes that's the idea. In practice however, a user doesn't type 'dnf erase
> -y kernel' by accident and we don't feel the need to protect users who
> really know what they are doing from doing so.

IMO, you are plain wrong.

You've never used scripts similar to sth. like this:
rpm -qa ... | grep ... | yum remove -y
and never encountered bugs with such scripts?

IIRC, debian's apt even has blacklists (protected packages) to prevent 
critical damages.

> It's the same situation
> as 'rm -rf /boot' or 'rpm -e --allmatches kernel'.
No. It is not. Think about non-bootable/broken kernels etc.

The kernel is a master piece of a package which must be allowed to be 
installed in multiple instances and of which at least the running 
instance must not be removed under any circumstances.

> Of course, people are
> welcome to write specific plugins to achieve something similar to what
> Yum used to do.
You don't really want to know what I think about this - It really pisses 
me off. You are trying to defend a behavioral regression *you* are 
reponsible for onto users.

Ralf