Smart package manager
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 HI Everybody, Those of you who attended the most recent WLUG meeting might remember me complaining that the version of YaST on OpenSuSE 10.1 has a pathetically slow program for handling software installation. Greg Avedissian mentioned the Smart package manager (http://labix.org/smart) as an alternative, so I gave it a try. The Smart package manager appears to be Linux distribution agnostic. It works on systems whose package management is based on RPM, APT, APT-RPM, YUM, etc. I tried it on my laptop, where I was having the most performance issues with YaST's software handling program. I am quite pleased with the Smart package manager! Thanks, Greg, for the recommendation! I haven't yet installed the Smart package manager on my "good" system, but I probably will if Novell doesn't fix YaST in OpenSuSE 10.2. The Smart package manager has found a permanent home on my laptop. Funding for the development of the Smart package manager is being supplied by Canonical Ltd., the same folks who are funding Ubuntu Linux. Later, Andy - -- Andy Stewart, Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA, USA http://www.wlug.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFFDIg+Hl0iXDssISsRApTfAJ9MYONVIomUGBZgSrJlZv1TFgZ1WwCfaCLM J2A2Ch5Jk0yLtWsYsTsarZM= =CTb9 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Andy> Those of you who attended the most recent WLUG meeting might Andy> remember me complaining that the version of YaST on OpenSuSE Andy> 10.1 has a pathetically slow program for handling software Andy> installation. Greg Avedissian mentioned the Smart package Andy> manager (http://labix.org/smart) as an alternative, so I gave it Andy> a try. This is really interesting. I've been very happy with 'apt-get' on my Debian box, but I've been totally ticked at how slow 'yum' is on my Fedora Core 3 box at work. I should probably just rebuild the thing, but hey, it's my main desktop and working for now. But yum is just not a fast too. John
On Mon, Sep 18, 2006 at 10:14:08AM -0400, John Stoffel wrote:
This is really interesting. I've been very happy with 'apt-get' on my Debian box, but I've been totally ticked at how slow 'yum' is on my Fedora Core 3 box at work. I should probably just rebuild the thing, but hey, it's my main desktop and working for now.
It's worth noting that the version of yum that ships with FC3 is pretty old, and newer ones are a *lot* faster. -- Frank Sweetser fs at wpi.edu | For every problem, there is a solution that WPI Network Engineer | is simple, elegant, and wrong. - HL Mencken GPG fingerprint = 6174 1257 129E 0D21 D8D4 E8A3 8E39 29E3 E2E8 8CEC
Frank> It's worth noting that the version of yum that ships with FC3 Frank> is pretty old, and newer ones are a *lot* faster. Yeah, I'm sure it is. I should think about upgrading at some point...
On Sat, 16 Sep 2006 19:26:54 -0400, Andy Stewart wrote:
Those of you who attended the most recent WLUG meeting might remember me complaining that the version of YaST on OpenSuSE 10.1 has a pathetically slow program for handling software installation. Greg Avedissian mentioned the Smart package manager (http://labix.org/smart) as an alternative, so I gave it a try.
The Smart package manager appears to be Linux distribution agnostic. It works on systems whose package management is based on RPM, APT, APT-RPM, YUM, etc.
I went to the page you gave, and was suitably impressed with what they had to say. Enough so, that I promptly installed it on my laptop running FC5. "yum install smart*" was enough to get the things installed that I needed. (Yes, I'm a 'yum' fan. <g>) Right now, it's been chugging "Updating channels". Any idea how long that takes, initially? It's been about two hours so far. Considering that I did a "yum upgrade" yesterday, I wouldn't think there would be a lot to do, shy of populating a DB or something for Smart to refer to...
I tried it on my laptop, where I was having the most performance issues with YaST's software handling program. I am quite pleased with the Smart package manager! Thanks, Greg, for the recommendation!
I don't know if this is indicative of where Red Hat is going, but the RPM header for Smart, which was generated at Red Hat, describes Smart as "the next generation package manager"...
I haven't yet installed the Smart package manager on my "good" system, but I probably will if Novell doesn't fix YaST in OpenSuSE 10.2. The Smart package manager has found a permanent home on my laptop.
Funding for the development of the Smart package manager is being supplied by Canonical Ltd., the same folks who are funding Ubuntu Linux.
I thought that was pretty interesting, too. :) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- William Smith wsmith-at-chezsmith-dot-com Fall River, MA http://www.chezsmith.com "Would that the risks could be as great for those that authorize a war as it is for those that have to fight it." -- William Smith * TAG! v3.2 *
Bill Smith wrote:
Right now, it's been chugging "Updating channels". Any idea how long that takes, initially? It's been about two hours so far. Considering that I did a "yum upgrade" yesterday, I wouldn't think there would be a lot to do, shy of populating a DB or something for Smart to refer to...
That sounds like a long time. I think I sat in front of the computer and watched it the first time, and it only took a little while. I'm on a dsl line. The one thing I wish it had (unless I missed it in the documentation) is a rollback feature that would allow you to undo an update. If it had that, I would have been able to undo the suse 10.1 update that made my keyboard go crazy instead of doing a reinstall. Greg
participants (5)
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Andy Stewart -
Bill Smith -
Frank Sweetser -
Gregory Avedissian -
John Stoffel