Question about the YDL philosophy

[Linschn]

Hello !

I have just installed a YDL 6.1 on my iBook G4. I previously had a Debian testing, but it began spinning out of control, and I as I need my computer to work on everyday I hadn't the courage to downgrade it to a Debian stable, or to reinstall it from scratch.

I am quite amazed by YDL so far : installed in less than 3 hours, trackpad OK on first boot, E17 as the environment...

Still some things still puzzle me :
-Why 2 different software for installing and upgrading software ?
-Why are the package downloads so looooooooong ? It took more time for the first update than for the installation...
-Where is TeXlive ? teTeX is 4 years old, it doesn't have Tikz and I badly need it.
-How are the software in the deposit choosen ? I wasn't able to see : teTeX and OOo 2.4 for example on one hand, and E17 and firefox 3 on the other hand : I would have think that everything would be cutting edge, or everything outdated but stable, but I see both at the same time.

Are there some deposit I am not aware of ? Which may contain TexLive and OOo 3, or shall I install it by hand ?
If I have to install it by hand, this would be a serious drawback to my Linux Hapiness... After my Debian testing failure, I want to keep everything as clean as possible and installing a software by hand is defenitively not the way to do it.

Kind regards.

[ppietro]

Hello !

I have just installed a YDL 6.1 on my iBook G4. I previously had a Debian testing, but it began spinning out of control, and I as I need my computer to work on everyday I hadn't the courage to downgrade it to a Debian stable, or to reinstall it from scratch.

I am quite amazed by YDL so far : installed in less than 3 hours, trackpad OK on first boot, E17 as the environment...

Still some things still puzzle me :
-Why 2 different software for installing and upgrading software ?
-Why are the package downloads so looooooooong ? It took more time for the first update than for the installation...
-Where is TeXlive ? teTeX is 4 years old, it doesn't have Tikz and I badly need it.
-How are the software in the deposit choosen ? I wasn't able to see : teTeX and OOo 2.4 for example on one hand, and E17 and firefox 3 on the other hand : I would have think that everything would be cutting edge, or everything outdated but stable, but I see both at the same time.

Are there some deposit I am not aware of ? Which may contain TexLive and OOo 3, or shall I install it by hand ?
If I have to install it by hand, this would be a serious drawback to my Linux Hapiness... After my Debian testing failure, I want to keep everything as clean as possible and installing a software by hand is defenitively not the way to do it.

Kind regards.

Ah - the intro to YDL post. Here we go!

YDL is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (via the CentOS free recompile), not Fedora as you might think. What this means is that YDL runs about three versions back from the current Fedora software libraries. This is done to improve stability at the expense of new features. A quick guide to this is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_hat_en ... tributions

I explain why this is here:
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=3684&p=16307#p16307

As for the lack of some software packages, Fedora/Red Hat has strict limitations on the software their repos can contain. If the repositories have any software that is copyrighted, or prevent commercial use, they won't carry it. I explain some of that here:

viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2715&p=10004#p10004

You need to add extra repos to gain access to copyrighted and non-open source programs. Normally, I'd tell you to add RPMFusion, and be done - but remember - YDL (RHEL) isn't current. RPM Fusion is for the latest Fedora releases only. So - we have to go old school with Livna, Dribble and Fedora Extras repositories.

In addition, these repos will try to update key libraries that YDL needs, so you have to add yum-protectbase as well.

Set up your system according to this post:
Howto: Install software (the easy way) YDL 6

I know this is for PS3 - but these instructions are not platform specific, and the repos are built using generic PowerPC binaries. I use the same repos, with a slightly different syntax, for my x86 CentOS box, as well as my PS3, and they work great. It also includes instructions for setting up protectbase.

Unfortunately, none of this is documented on Red Hat websites, per se. It's just kind of Red Hat "tribal knowledge". Those of us used to YDL, RHEL, CentOS, Fedora, etc., just kind of automatically add these extra repositories.

Finally - coming from a Debian background, YDL will take some getting used to. I have the same problem using Ubuntu or Debian, since I first learned Linux years ago with Red Hat 6.2, and tend to prefer systems based on it.

Hang in there, and feel free to ask questions in these forums.

Cheers,
Paul

P.S. By the way - the GUI program manager and update manager both call the same underlying program. Instead of Debian's apt-get, we use something called YUM. The package manager (pirut) and update program (pup) both use YUM to do their work.

[Linschn]

Thank you for your quite complete answer. I now understand why I can find both cutting edge and somehow outdated software in the repos.

I have added the new repositories, as explained in the post you link. Everything seems to work fine, as the list of available software increased. But I still don't have access to TeXLive... Do you know if there are YDL compatible ppc binaries available somewhere ? I tried to look for it, but have been unsuccessful.

I don't mind spending time learning the way YDL works, its philosophy seems just fine to me, after my failure with Debian testing.I just have to quickly fix problems that prevent me to work with my computer, minor issues can wait.

If I have to compile TeXLive by hand, is there a YDL way to do it ? I'm thinking of a way that would allow me to update and/or uninstall easily, without messing things up.

[bonedome]

Hello
I'm not sure it's an easy install but a quick google found this http://www.tug.org/texlive/ and the install instructions seem pretty straight forward, if it fails at any stage read any errors carefully and install any missing dependencies/packages which can usually be found in add/remove software.
Good luck
just saw this in the quick install guide

Then, except on Windows, you must add the TeX Live binary directory to your PATH:
PATH=/usr/local/texlive/2008/bin/i386-linux:$PATH
(Use the syntax for your shell, your own chosen directory, and your own system name instead of i386-linux.)

this kind of suggests to me it can compile/install on ppc

[CronoCloud]

TeX is pretty much CPU/hardware agnostic, installing should be easy. Heck I installed the last TeTeX build (before they went "Live") on a PS2! And the only reason I didn't just install TeXLive sometime is because it's over a Gig of stuff. It does have TrueType font support though, regular old TeTeX doesn't, and I was a bit surprised YDL didn't have TexLive.

One other issue the OP might have ins installing TeXLive is HD space. If he's done the usual 10GB to Linux, the rest to GameOS split that 10GB will fill up fast.

Ron Rogers Jr. (CronoCloud)

[Linschn]

I have just installed TeXlive with the installer they give on their website. The process went absolutely fine, in one night.

I was quite nervous about installing things outside the package system, but everything seems fine. Thank you for your advice.

When removing package(s) with the "Add/Remove applications" program, are the uneeded dependency removed too ? If not, how shall they be removed ?

[bonedome]

Hello

When removing package(s) with the "Add/Remove applications" program, are the uneeded dependency removed too ? If not, how shall they be removed ?

when you use add/remove software you are using yum, yum is good because it finds all the dependencies you need, the downside to this is when you remove stuff, for example if you remove vlc, it will also remove anything that vlc uses (which is a lot of useful stuff), so to answer your question yes all the related dependencies will be removed (and sometimes more).
To check what's going to be removed (using add/remove software) you can uncheck e.g vlc click on apply, it will then bring up a list of dependencies/packages marked for removal along with vlc (just click cancel if you change your mind), Paul and billb showed me the best way to remove just the package, using vlc as an example

Code: Select all

rpm --erase --nodeps vlc

CronoCloud I think you hit the nail on the head, ydl just couldn't afford the disc space TexLive is huge