As discussed last week, I wanted to continue the discussion about the package management changes - but not concentrating on the real bugs we're fixing now but on general issues:
With SUSE Linux 10.1 we have redesigned the way we handle software. We are proud to be able to announce our new software management backend which is based on the so-called library "libzypp" and which also integrates Novell's ZENworks technology. Also we decided to follow the repomd standard (sometimes known as "YUM repository") for our new software repositories. In fact we are now able to manage more than packages only. We have integrated flavors like patches, patterns and even products all of which are defined and handled equivalently to packages. This new framework allows for new ways to define system dependencies and to build more complex application stacks also considering certain patch levels, patterns or even products to depend on. Also we were able to fix the well known issue where one could compromise a system installation by installing outdated packages after already having applied patches. Using the new technology the system is now able to detect these kinds of package-patch dependency violations. By integrating Novell's ZENworks technology we enriched our distribution by a new command line tool called 'rug' and a daemon called 'zmd' which are able to keep your system up-to-date. Also we invented a new easy-to-use patch management user interface which is called 'zen-updater'. These new tools are also able to tie into a ZENworks Linux Management infrastructure in order to allow for centralized remote management. As these changes are also impacting the user experience regarding package and patch management we'd very welcome to start a discussion thread whether and how we still can further improve the current toolchain. One question we have is how the new tools rug, zen-updater and zmd compare to what we had before with YaST Online Update and suseWatcher. We are interested in every feedback ranging from architecture, design or used standards and their enhancements. As this topic is not a very easy one I guess we'll need several iterations for this discussion. Therefore I'll try to summarize the first discussion outcomes on http://en.opensuse.org/Libzypp/Design. After a couple of weeks we can then continue the discussion after everybody had the chance to work with - and love/hate - the new toolchain, Andreas -- Andreas Jaeger, [EMAIL PROTECTED], http://www.suse.de/~aj/ SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany GPG fingerprint = 93A3 365E CE47 B889 DF7F FED1 389A 563C C272 A126
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