Saturday, May 13, 2006

UPDATE:- SUSE 10.1 Package Management

After my post showing how some of the new package management in SUSE 10.1 works, an issue has come to light (props to tech9iner and Ancient1). I guess like all things new in software these days there was bound to be some glitches with the first release.

I posted that you can add online repositories using the command line tool 'rug', and I stated that rug and ZMD are meant to synchronise with yast so your services are available everywhere. Well it seems theres a bug with adding a repo as a YUM source. If you add a service in rug with the option --type=YUM then it may not synchronise. This means you would see updates in the tray applet and you could install from the service using rug command such as 'rug install' but if you opened yast control centre the service would not be listed in the 'Installation Source' module and a search for packages in the yast 'Software Management' module would not find your package.

The solution to this is to add the repository as a ZYPP service in rug. To add the source as a ZYPP service ( packman for example ) use the following paramater for rug.

rug sa --type=ZYPP http://packman.inode.at/suse/10.1/ packman

Depending on the repo your trying to add you may have to change the URL of the service, some repositories keep the YUM metadata in a different location from the ZYPP data for example. Lets take a look at the URL for a guru YUM repo.

http://ftp.skynet.be/pub/suser-guru/rpm/10.1/RPMS/
Note the YUM metadata is in the RPMS folder, this is technically the correct location to store it for a YUM service. Now the URL to add it as a ZYPP service

http://ftp.skynet.be/pub/suser-guru/rpm/10.1
The URL for the YUM and ZYPP metadata may be the same for some repositories or it may be different. Some may only have one type of metadata... Your mileage may vary, contact the repository maintainer for information if your stuck.

26 comments:

Cenuij said...

Quite a few people I know like using smart, I would agree with them that it's a great package manager but I like using rug now that I'm familiar with it.

Also I think it can be useful to know the default tools available, that way if someone asks you theres a way to help them without having to install extra software.

Anonymous said...

This little buggy behavior of Zen and Yast has nearly caused a nervous breakdown by me. I was trying this way and that way and somehow my Zypp Database was broken etc. After deleting the Zypp and ZMD Databases I reinstalled both packages and now it seems to work somehow. But I don't trust this zen-updater. I hope they will give some patches so that it will work as it should...

Anonymous said...

Hmmm....I followed and used your rug instructions and Zen is updated along with it, unless I'm missing something? Now I'm worried : (

Anonymous said...

Hi,
I found a problem when I insert the official repository (http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/SL-10.1/inst-source) in YaST --> Instalation Source.
When I insert this repository, YaST get a list of files, but after I click in "Finish" (I don´t know the correct translate to english... this button is found in right side below the window of YaST Instalation Source), the window never close (I need kill).
Thanks,
Yamane
BRAZIL

Anonymous said...

How do you get around the architecture issue when you try and install from Guru's repository? As all of Pascal's packages are i686 my system gives an error of "built for different architectur"

Thanks and keep up the info - really helps even for someone that has been using SUSE since 8.2 :)

Anonymous said...

@Yamane:

I hat this Problem several times, too. Try to add a source through the command line with rug. Maybe he gives you an error message. I had a Problem with the Zypp Database. It was broken somehow.

If there is no problem, then add just one small extra source packet, maybe 10.1 non-oss extra, and wait. He needs sometimes quite a lot of time to add an source packet. So maybe he ist just working. Let him go for ten minutes or so.

Another problem is that I cannot restart the novell-zmd startup script. Maybe Yast has problems with that, too. I had at least one error message connected with this problem.

Anonymous said...

hi....

about the Xgl F12 option that you said in the text, in fact it exist! you can see this effect by moving your mouse to the up right corner of the desktop in KDE...
(i'm not sure if i'm clear...)

great blog, atualize it more!

Cenuij said...

@ Yamane

After you add a mirror for the main installation source repository either throuh YAST or using rug you need to be slightly patient. The size of the repo metadata for this repo is over 70Mb so it can take a while to download depending on your net connection.

Raúl Moratalla said...

Congratulations for your post, this would be very useful :)

Anonymous said...

Hi,
This new package software is driving me nuts! Thanks for the guide, although I still can't get rug to add a ZYPP source, I follow the instructions and type:

rug sa --TYPE=ZYPP http://packman.inode.at/suse/10.1/ packman

and it says incorrect URI. Any ideas? Can't wait for the XGL stuff!

Cenuij said...

Iain hi

You could try and let rug determine the source type by itself.

If you simply pass a URL to rug without specifying the repository type like this:

rug sa URL aliasname

Rug will try and automatically determine the repo type. This usually works fine with the caveat of YUM services not being synched with yast.

Also be aware that while some repos have the same URL for both types of repo metadata, others may have a different URL for the YUM & ZYPP metadata files.

e.g.
ZYPP = http://url.to.repo/10.1/
YUM = http://url.to.repo/10.1/suse
or
YUM = http://url.to.repo/10.1/RPMS

Anonymous said...

Iain Coleman, use --type ;)

Cenuij said...

Typo noted, and updated.. thx dude ;)

Anonymous said...

hmmm i followed your instructions... i get the zen updater notification telling me there are 33 updates. When i try to install i get the error that resolver failed.... bummer

djenhar said...

solved after reboot!

deech

Anonymous said...

I too appreciate your help. The yast/zen online updater failure is a known bug. My issue was that YOU wasnt letting me pick a local mirror like in past versions. Once I didnt submit hardware or optional info, I got a local mirror for updates, it worked in YOU but now the databases are screwed up i guess and it fails. Novell and opensuse need to be beaten up over this and understand the primary reason why users, especially those new to linux, use suse. Its because of the convenience of YOU! Its crazy to have to update an OS every other day. Then to ship an OS with a broken software updater is unacceptable. How are we supposed to get a patch!? No I dont want to use another package manager, I want the default one to work.

Anonymous said...

This updater bug is fixed. Use "rug update" (no quotes) to update the packages. (See the updated list here: ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/suse/update/10.1/rpm/i586/.)

Anonymous said...

Maybe the problem you describe is fixed by the latest Suse update:
http://lists.opensuse.org/archive/opensuse-announce/2006-Jun/0002.html

--
Mickaël Rémond
http://www.process-one.net/

Anonymous said...

When I try to add some of the repositories given here (Packman, Guru) after the last fixes from SuSE to make the update mechanism working at all, I get the error message "Failed to parse XML metadata: Unsigned file '/repodata/repomd.xml'".

Can anyone help me by telling where to get (and how to import) the signatures?

Apart from that, these pages here have been very helpful for me, so thanks for putting them up!

Anonymous said...

do this first ->

rug set-prefs security-level checksum

The thing is that when u actually manage to import packman's repo and try to download some updates, u will get an error like this;

Dependency Resolution Failed
Unknown Failure


Thank god I didn't pay for this OS...

dt

Anonymous said...

Do we really need this? What was wrong with the old Yast? Everything was under one roof and your average Joe could figure it out. Why do they always have to fix what isn't broken?

For all you developers who write code with your head stuck so far up your bunghole that you don't know what a user is, I propose the following law... IF YOUR END USER WANTS TO EAT HIS SHOTGUN THEN DON'T RELEASE IT!

I can't in good faith recommend this release, which makes me very irritated because I believe it's one of the best distro's out there. I don't need so called bleeding edge if the only thing that bleeds is my brain and I could care less about a six month release cycle if what is “new” is going to make me prematurely old.

Your average person values his time, and if you think they are going to sit there for half a day or more to get something to work that should flawlessly work from day one then keep this keep this crap a coming and we'll all marvel at your market share in a year or so. Sorry for the rant but someone had to do it.

Anonymous said...

I had similar problems with suse 10.1..
One day I started an online update through Yast and it stuck..
It leaved the system half updated.
By the way wouldn't be better for Yast Online Update , first to download all updates , verify them and then update the system?
I ve noticed that YOU downloads and installs patch by patch.
Anyway afterwards YOU and software management did not work , (unknown module sw_single outputed ..).
Solved it (?) by reinstalling latest version of yast-pkg-bindings , and magically after thar "rpm -Uvh --force " command , yast started by itself and continued the update (maybe that is explained by the fact that YOU is started on the baCKground and continues to loop trying to start , if it has some problem starting)..
Yeah yeah i m pissed as well with Suse ..
I have installed every single version since 9.0 and my general impression is that Suse has become more unstable in every one of them..
When the update finished I found that Suse has updated firefox as well with a 1.5.0.4 version with a Suse theme.
So far so good but many extensions dit not work ,(tab mix plus)..
I dont't know..
Maybe xgl working as the X server is causing problems..
I try to reinstall firefox from Mozilla site , reintalled it but extension installing-uninstalling still does not work..
And imagine , on mozilla tar there is not a single document INSTALL.txt readme.txt.
.There something that says refer to out site for instructions.
All these stuff take time and We want to create things than trouble shoot common stuff all the time.
Ok I dont want to recall what I ve passed till I get mp3, mpg support for amarok and kaffeine..
As for the package management...
Now we dont have one (yast) ..
We have 2,3 I dont know how many..
And guess what , all of them have problems..
Ok i got it off my chest now..
Bye disappointed SuSE fans.
P.S. Ok but XGL/Compiz ROCKS!

Anonymous said...

I cannot believe the hoops I am having to jump through just to play mp3s on my system, just thanks to this utterly bizarre package system. This is positively stupid! Please make this one hell of a lot better SuSE...

Anonymous said...

Im really worried i want to add some repositaries, but it isnt doing anything!!! I must kill it! Suse 10.1 is really fucked up!!!

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