Problem: Seeing uninstalled packages

WheelDweller · #1 22nd November 2005, 04:23 AM

I spent some time in Ubuntu. It's slick; I'm particularly taken with it's (easier) ability to run "ancient" things due to the way it deals with libraries. In fact there's a lot that's good about Ubuntu, but I'm not running it anymore, at least for my key workstations. It's just not developed enough yet...but it will be.

One key ability THEY have that WE don't is the ability to go into Synaptic and look for files that are in the repos, but not installed. This actually is a problem. Finding new packages on Fedora means hunting them down...either through THOUSANDS of rpm on Dag's nice-n-pretty web setup (Thanks, Dag!) or random hunting through "yum search programname". This isn't acceptable.

Ubuntu allows the user to do it all, right there, with the repository data in one figurative hand, and the user in the other...very little hunting required. I'd be running more packages, if I knew they were out there...

BandC · #2 22nd November 2005, 04:26 PM

Yumex allows you to see not-installed packages. The GUI isn't as advanced as synaptic but it works OK. Also, you can run synaptic in Fedora. So, you have the same capability.

nlkrio · #3 22nd November 2005, 04:43 PM

There is kyum too!For kde lovers!

Jman · #4 23rd November 2005, 05:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WheelDweller

One key ability THEY have that WE don't is the ability to go into Synaptic and look for files that are in the repos, but not installed. This actually is a problem. Finding new packages on Fedora means hunting them down...either through THOUSANDS of rpm on Dag's nice-n-pretty web setup (Thanks, Dag!) or random hunting through "yum search programname". This isn't acceptable.

http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/yum/

In particular, the "yum provides" option.

WheelDweller · #5 23rd November 2005, 02:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jman

http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/yum/

In particular, the "yum provides" option.

Unfortunately that works rather poorly...like last night when I was searching for "Dia", or just "any kind of usable CAD program". I did "yum search dia" and was stuck with a window showing me just about every package, and since it can't be aborted, it ran for like 2 minutes.

"CAD" would have been easier, but it wouldn't have turned up Dia, or other "sketching' programs without CAD in the name.

I'm one of Redhat's biggest fans...this is just one feature they beat us on. How can it not be possible to manage that list in Synaptic?

RahulSundaram · #6 23rd November 2005, 08:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WheelDweller

Unfortunately that works rather poorly...like last night when I was searching for "Dia", or just "any kind of usable CAD program". I did "yum search dia" and was stuck with a window showing me just about every package, and since it can't be aborted, it ran for like 2 minutes.

"CAD" would have been easier, but it wouldn't have turned up Dia, or other "sketching' programs without CAD in the name.

I'm one of Redhat's biggest fans...this is just one feature they beat us on. How can it not be possible to manage that list in Synaptic?

Yum search exhaustively searches the entire package metadata. What you probably want is something like

yum list available | grep -i dia

If you want a gui both Yumex and Kyum is in Fedora Extras and system-config-packages is planned be rewritten to be yum for Fedora Core 5.

WheelDweller · #7 23rd November 2005, 08:33 PM

You don't seem to understand; I need to browse for things I have no description for, not look for a keyword.

Synaptic in Ubuntu uses apt, but the exact same program can use yum, and all that data's captured from the yum repos as well...what kind of "Microsoft-its-to-integrated-to-do-that" problem can there be? Is it a political problem?

RahulSundaram · #8 23rd November 2005, 08:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WheelDweller

You don't seem to understand; I need to browse for things I have no description for, not look for a keyword.

Synaptic in Ubuntu uses apt, but the exact same program can use yum, and all that data's captured from the yum repos as well...what kind of "Microsoft-its-to-integrated-to-do-that" problem can there be? Is it a political problem?

yum install yumex and use that?

WheelDweller · #9 23rd November 2005, 08:49 PM

Well, why is it required that we write another set of code to do precisely the same thing? If there's a different tool for every distro, that's only going to complicate Linux. Does no onw at the Synaptic camp know how to program? <rhetorical> Why is doing more of the same do daunting? It's not like part of the code is proprietary and has to be reversed engineered because only part of it's documented in a copyrighted spec...

Wouldn't it be great if there was one standardized GUI for package management? Whether it's called from YAST or the command line, having one tool that works everywhere is kinda the point of Linux in the first place, isn't it?

RahulSundaram · #10 23rd November 2005, 09:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WheelDweller

Well, why is it required that we write another set of code to do precisely the same thing? If there's a different tool for every distro, that's only going to complicate Linux. Does no onw at the Synaptic camp know how to program? <rhetorical> Why is doing more of the same do daunting? It's not like part of the code is proprietary and has to be reversed engineered because only part of it's documented in a copyrighted spec...

Wouldn't it be great if there was one standardized GUI for package management? Whether it's called from YAST or the command line, having one tool that works everywhere is kinda the point of Linux in the first place, isn't it?

Synpatic uses Apt and not yum. Using APT-RPM by default instead of yum is not possible since it does not support features like multi lib which is essential to Fedora.

See http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Tools/Apt

Fedora in general prefers python as the development environment for its own tools. If you havent noticed yet, The installer, all of the configuration tools, Fedora Extras build system, Accounts system, Wiki, package management tools like up2date, yum, profile management tools like Sabayon are all written in python. This is the standardisation thats happening with Fedora to help developers maintain it efficiently.

Retrofitting yum support into synaptic might be possible. Probably wont be accepted by upstream developers. Feel free to try that though.