[packagekit] Software Sources / Channels and PackageKit

[Anders F Björklund]

Alex Eftimie wrote:

> Since this is my first post on this list, I am a GSoC student working
> on PK backend for Ubuntu Software Center.
> 
> I don't know if this has been discussed before, but what is PK's
> position regarding package repositories? For what I see, currently,
> channel management is left to the distro.

http://www.packagekit.org/pk-faq.html#repo-add-remove

> Is it a good idea to have software channel management included in
> PackageKit? Backends should provide the specific way of adding and
> removing such sources.
> 
> What do you think?

In Fedora, you add/remove yum channels by installing/removing
packages that contain the yum .repo file(s) and gpg key(s)...
So if you want to enable the "foo" repository you install the
"foo-release" rpm with /etc/yum.repos.d/* and /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/*

This is similar to editing /etc/apt/sources.list and using apt-key.
(e.g. https://help.launchpad.net/Packaging/PPA/InstallingSoftware)
So if you use another meta-package manager, you'll need to pry open
that package and extract the repository configuration and public key.

--anders