Fedora Extras and apt question

[dishawjp]

Hi All.

It seems that Fedora is moving more closely to yum all the time and gradually away from apt. Since I've always had good luck with apt and am familiar with its commands, I'd just as soon stick with it. But now I want to add Fedora Extras to apt and am not quite sure of how to do that. The directions at http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/f ... ux/extras/
refer only to yum and even googling it hasn't been productive except that it did point out a repository more directed towards apt, at:

http://download.fedora.us/fedora/fedora/3/i386/

but I didn't find a helpful readme there.

Would it be as simple as creating a new file in my /etc/apt/sources.list.d directory named something like extras.list and the contents of the file being something like:

rpm http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/f ... as/3/i386/
or
rpm http://download.fedora.us/fedora/fedora ... MS.extras/


Does the actual file name make any difference as long as the extension is .list?

When apt changed from having a single sources.list file it seems that things got a bit more complicated.

Anyway, the main reason I want to have the "extras" available is that this FC3 computer has been running too well for way too long and I feel a need to do something that will hose it

Thanks,

Jim Dishaw

[Void Main]

If you want to hose it then using RPMs from fedora.us is probably a good way to do it. Fedora "never has" been apt friendly. It was always an add on with great repositories by great guys like Matthias (FreshRPMS) and Dag. When the Fedora project finally picked a package resolver, why they went with yum I'll never know, but I refuse to use it. In fact I am so close to switching to a different distro as my main desktop/laptop OS because of it. I also use Dag exclusively. See the "Truths and Lies about mixing repositories" on this page:

http://dag.wieers.com/home-made/apt/

[dishawjp]

Thanks Voidmain,

I don't want to do *severe* hosage on my poor computer, but would like access to some of the "extras." Already, apt is an extra and in order to keep the size of the distro reasonable, a lot more packages are going to be removed from the core and into extras.

If there are packages in the extras that I want to install, should I just download the rpms and install manually (using rpm)?

Jim Dishaw

[Void Main]

That is a yum only directory so you'll either have to use yum or download and install the package manually (which is what I would do unless I can find it on one of the Dag compatible repos or build it myself). Another option would be to look around for an extras apt mirror (I did a quick search and couldn't find one).

[dishawjp]

Thanks Voidmain,

Another option would be to look around for an extras apt mirror (I did a quick search and couldn't find one).

The fedora.us one was the only one I was able to find. For now I guess I'll just grab individual .rpms from there and hope that one of the other repositiries (dag, dries, etc.) decides to include extras before too long. Dag seems to just have problems with livna and the frdora.us repositiries.

When the Fedora project finally picked a package resolver, why they went with yum I'll never know, but I refuse to use it. In fact I am so close to switching to a different distro as my main desktop/laptop OS because of it.

If you really were to switch away from Fedora, what distro would you most likely look at, or have you gone that far in your thoughts. I've also given some thought to moving away from Fedora, though for different reasons. Mostly because the releases are so frequent and support is dropped so quickly. Also, the Fedora Legacy Project doesn't seem to be particularly active. While this is much less of an issue on my home computer which is more of a toy than anything else, reinstallation for upgrades a couple of times a year on my court work computer is no joy. And once I do start a reinstall, I can't leave until everything important is fully operational. This means working with and learning the newest release for a couple of months at home and testing our files to make certain that they work properly with the new release. Then there's a long day doing the actual upgrade, moving all the backups to the new install, setting up the user accounts, and getting everything configured. And if something doesn't go well, the nervous tension isn't pleasant since, unless it's something unimportant like sound, it can't just be left for another day.

Jim

[Void Main]

Thanks Voidmain,

Another option would be to look around for an extras apt mirror (I did a quick search and couldn't find one).

The fedora.us one was the only one I was able to find. For now I guess I'll just grab individual .rpms from there and hope that one of the other repositiries (dag, dries, etc.) decides to include extras before too long. Dag seems to just have problems with livna and the frdora.us repositiries.

Actually it's not a Dag problem, it's a fedora.us problem. Dag was around before them and he is more than willing (happy in fact) to work with them but they are not willing to coordinate with him so their repos are compatible. What packages do you need that are not in one of the Dag compatible repos? If there is something in extras that is not in the Dag repos I am sure he would add them.

When the Fedora project finally picked a package resolver, why they went with yum I'll never know, but I refuse to use it. In fact I am so close to switching to a different distro as my main desktop/laptop OS because of it.

If you really were to switch away from Fedora, what distro would you most likely look at, or have you gone that far in your thoughts. I've also given some thought to moving away from Fedora, though for different reasons. Mostly because the releases are so frequent and support is dropped so quickly.

Debian. I actually use Debian a lot right now and have for years. I just don't currently use it on most of my laptops and desktops.

[Ice9]

If you really were to switch away from Fedora, what distro would you most likely look at, or have you gone that far in your thoughts. I've also given some thought to moving away from Fedora, though for different reasons. Mostly because the releases are so frequent and support is dropped so quickly.


Debian. I actually use Debian a lot right now and have for years. I just don't currently use it on most of my laptops and desktops.

Actually it's because of many little things like these that I switched distros.
dishawjp, you might wanna look at this thread where Void Main directs me to Debian.
I'm still running unstable and happier than ever.
There are a couple of differences but nothing too radical.

[dishawjp]

Thanks Voidmain and Ice9,

I may take a closer look at Debian when I get some time to play around with it. Looks like a much better route for me in the long run.

Jim