[packagekit] Service Packs, PackageKit (and Opyum)

[Debarshi 'Rishi' Ray]

>> The main GUI tool provides a way to create these YumPacks, while
>> another GUI utility (system-install-yumpacks) allows a single-click
>> method of installing or updating from the YumPack.

> Okay, a yumpack is just a tarball? Why did you choose to compress them
> this way out of interest?

It is an uncompressed tarball. eg., service-pack.tar or yum-pack.tar.
I chose not to compress them because RPM's are compressed cpio
archives and in the beginning the added overhead of compressing the
packs did not look necessary.

> Sure, it would be great to work with you on this. What are the primary
> use cases fulfilled by Opyum - service packs, offline install or a
> combination of them both?

Actually a combination of both. You could take a look at my Summer Of
Code proposal: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SummerOfCode/2007/DebarshiRay
The "rationale" and "use cases" sections are what you should look at.
Please ask if something is not clear.

The one thing which is different from what is written there is the
fact that Opyum is not a plugin for Pirut. It is a standalone
application which borrows a lot of code from Pirut (does not use the
Yum API directly), mostly in the form of the modules exported by Pirut
in /usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages This approach looks sub-optimal to
me because new Pirut releases often cause Opyum to break; problems in
the Pirut GUI affect Opyum too; and the application stays locked in
Fedora-land.

Happy hacking,
Debarshi
-- 
Free software for the Indian community:
* ftp://fedora.glug-nith.org/ (Fedora)
* http://gnu.glug-nith.org/ (GNU)
* http://mirror.wbut.ac.in/ (CRAN, Fedora, Mozilla, TLDP)