Managing Packages And Repositories With Yum And Yumex On Fedora 7

Version 1.0
Author: Oliver Meyer <o [dot] meyer [at] projektfarm [dot] de>
Last edited 09/25/2007

This article explains how to improve/optimize/speed up package installation with Yum, install packages with "Yum Extender" (a GUI for Yum with extensive features to manage packages), and manage different external package repositories - with focus on prevention of problems with different repositories - on Fedora 7.

This howto is meant as a practical guide; it does not cover the theoretical backgrounds. They are treated in a lot of other documents in the web.

This document comes without warranty of any kind! I want to say that this is not the only way of setting up such a system. There are many ways of achieving this goal but this is the way I take. I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you!

1 Yum

1.1 Speed Up Yum

To ensure that yum always uses the fastest available mirror for a repository (if it has more than one mirror) you can install the package yum-fastestmirror. This will decrease the time for downloads in many cases.

yum install yum-fastestmirror

1.2 Broken Dependencies

To avoid problems with dependencies in the first place you can install the package yum-skip-broken - packages with dependency problems will just be skipped.

yum install yum-skip-broken

1.3 Kernel Modules

To prevent your system from updating the kernel if you have kernel-modules installed which are not available yet for the new kernel, you can install the two packages yum-fedorakmod and yum-kernel-module.

yum install yum-fedorakmod yum-kernel-module

2 Repositories

There are different repositories available for Fedora 7 - the problem is: some of these repositories have different versions of packages with equal names. Just mixing such repositories will end up in a mess sooner or later. So premeditate which repositories you add.

If you want or need to mix varoius repositories there are some possibilities to handle this:

If you only need a few packages from mixed repositories you should disable them by default and enable them only if you want to install a package. Don't use them for systemwide updates! To disable a repository, go to /etc/yum.repos.d/, open the *.repo file of your choice and set enable to 0.

e.g.

[atrpms]
name=Fedora Core $releasever - $basearch - ATrpms
baseurl=http://dl.atrpms.net/f$releasever-$basearch/atrpms/stable
gpgkey=http://ATrpms.net/RPM-GPG-KEY.atrpms
gpgcheck=1
enabled=0

To enable a repository temporarily to install or update a package:

yum --enablerepo=$repository $action $package

e.g.

yum --enablerepo=atrpms install vlc

Or simply mark the corresponding checkbox in the Yum Extender - have a look at step 3.1.

You want all? Possible... Then you have to install and configure one of the following packages:

yum-priorities (detailed information at http://wiki.centos.org/PackageManagement/Yum/Priorities)

or

yum-protectbase (detailed information at http://wiki.centos.org/PackageManagement/Yum/ProtectBase)

Some well-known repositories:

2.1 Livna

An extension of the Fedora repository(s). It provides multimedia applications, video drivers for nvidia and ati cards and some other packages.

Homepage: http://rpm.livna.org/
Architecture: i386, x86_64, ppc
List of packages: i386, x86_64, ppc
Fedora 7 release-rpm: http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/7/i386/livna-release-7-2.noarch.rpm

2.2 KDE-Redhat

Provides packages only for KDE.

Homepage: http://kde-redhat.sourceforge.net/
Architecture: i386, x86_64 ( not all packages )
List of packages: i386, x86_64
Fedora release-rpm: http://apt.kde-redhat.org/apt/kde-redhat/fedora/kdeforge.repo

2.3 Freshrpms

Provides multimedia applications, video drivers for nvidia and ati cards and some other packages.

Homepage: http://freshrpms.net/
Architecture: i386, x86_64, ppc
List of packages: http://bordeaux.freshrpms.net/
Fedora 7 release-rpm: http://ftp.freshrpms.net/pub/freshrpms/fedora/linux/7/freshrpms-release/freshrpms-release-1.1-1.fc.noarch.rpm

2.4 RPMforge

A joint project from a few maintainers of other repositories like Dag, Dries or Freshrpms. It provides different kinds of packages.

Homepage: http://rpmforge.net/
Architecture: i386, x86_64, ppc ( Yellow Dog Linux ), SPARC ( Aurora Linux ), Alpha ( Fedora Core 2 )
List of packages: http://rpmforge.net/user/packages/

2.5 ATRPMS

Provides different kinds of packages for all versions of Fedora, RHEL and RHL 7.3/8.

Homepage: http://atrpms.net/
Architecture: i386, x86_64, ppc
List of packages: http://atrpms.net/dist/
Fedora 7 release-rpm (i386): http://dl.atrpms.net/all/atrpms-package-config-117-5.fc7.i386.rpm
Fedora 7 release-rpm (x86_64): http://dl.atrpms.net/all/atrpms-package-config-117-5.fc7.x86_64.rpm
Fedora 7 release-rpm (ppc): http://dl.atrpms.net/all/atrpms-package-config-117-5.fc7.ppc.rpm

2.6 Kwizart

Provides packages for various WLAN drivers ( also rare models ) and special software like hotkey- and ACPI drivers for various notebooks. It also contains packages for Freevo. Deemed compatible to the Livna repository.

Homepage: http://kwizart.free.fr/blog/
Architecture: i386, x86_64
List of packages: http://kwizart.free.fr/fedora/7/i386/repodata/
Fedora 7 release-rpm: http://kwizart.free.fr/fedora/kwizart-release-7.noarch.rpm

2.7 Adobe

Provides the proprietary Flash plugin.

Homepage: http://macromedia.mplug.org/
Architecture: i386
List of packages: http://macromedia.mplug.org/rpm/RPMS.macromedia/
Release-rpm: http://linuxdownload.adobe.com/adobe-release/adobe-release-i386-1.0-1.noarch.rpm

2.8 Suspend2

Provides packages for suspend2 - described as the Linux equivalent of Windows' hibernate functionality. Interesting for notebook users.

Homepage: http://mhensler.de/swsusp/index_en.php
Architecture: i386
List of packages: http://mhensler.de/swsusp/download/yum/fc7/
Repository-file: http://mhensler.de/swsusp/download/suspend2.repo

2.9 Gstreamer

Provides packages for gstreamer directly from the developers.

Homepage: http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/
Architecture: i386, x86_64
List of packages: http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/pkg/fedora/
Repository-file (gstreamer-deps): http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/download/gstreamer-0.10-deps.repo
Repository-file (gstreamer-gst): http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/download/gstreamer-0.10-gst.repo
Repository-file (gstreamer-apps): http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/download/gstreamer-0.10-apps.repo

2.10 Freevo

Provides packages for the HTPC surface freevo.

Homepage: http://freevo.sourceforge.net/
Architecture: i386
From the Freevo wiki: "Currently Freevo RPMs for FC6/F7 are available from the kwizart repository, which is dependent on additional packages from rpm.livna.org.WARNING: You SHOULD NOT mix packages from Livna with those from FreshRPMs, as doing so will lead to RPM package conflicts and other dependency issues."

2.11 PlanetCCRMA

Provides packages for professional audio usage.

Homepage: http://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/software/
Architecture: i386
List of packages: http://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/mirror/fedora/linux/planetccrma/7/i386/
Signature:

rpm --import http://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/RPM-GPG-KEY.planetccrma.txt

Fedora 7 release-rpm: http://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/mirror/fedora/linux/planetccrma/7/i386/planetccrma-repo-1.0-3.fc7.ccrma.noarch.rpm

2.12 Dribble

Provides packages for different games and emulators. Depending on the Livna repository.

Homepage: http://dribble.org.uk/
Architecture: i386, x86_64, ppc
List of Packages: http://dribble.org.uk/listrpms9.html
Fedora 6/7 release-rpm: http://dribble.org.uk/repo/dribble-release-5-3.noarch.rpm

2.13 Dell (OMSA)

Provides packages for "Dell OpenManage Server Administrator" and other Dell packages (inofficial).

Homepage: http://linux.dell.com/yum/software/
Architecture: i386, x86_64
List of packages: http://linux.dell.com/repo/software/fc7/
Software-repository:

wget -q -O - http://linux.dell.com/repo/software/bootstrap.cgi | bash

Hardware-repository ( OMSA ):

wget -q -O - http://linux.dell.com/repo/hardware/bootstrap.cgi | bash

2.14 Didier

Provides packages for the window manager enlightenment E17 ( beta )

Homepage: http://sps.nus.edu.sg/~didierbe/index.html
Architecture: i386, x86_64 ( only Fedora 7 )
List of packages: i386, x86_64
Fedora 7 release-rpm: http://sps.nus.edu.sg/~didierbe/share/dc-f7-yum-repo-1.0-1.fc7.noarch.rpm

2.15 Jpackage

Provides many packages for java applications.

Homepage: http://jpackage.org/
Architecture: noarch
List of packages: http://mirrors.dotsrc.org/jpackage/1.6/generic/free/repodata/
Repository-file: http://jpackage.org/jpackage.repo

2.16 Skype

Provides Skype ( currently v1.4.x beta ).

Homepage: http://www.skype.com/
Repository-data:

[skype]
name=Skype Repository
baseurl=http://download.skype.com/linux/repos/fedora/updates/i586/ 
gpgkey=http://www.skype.com/products/skype/linux/rpm-public-key.asc