[CentOS-devel] Shipping an EPEL release

[Lamar Owen]

On Friday, September 14, 2012 02:08:40 PM Johnny Hughes wrote:
> I am trying to understand how this:
> 
> yum install epel-repo

> is any easier for users than this:

> yum install
> http://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/fedora-epel/6/i386/epel-release-6-7.noarch.rpm

Assuming osuosl's mirror is up... but anyway, 'yum --enablerepo=extras install epel-release' (with the repo in epel-release enabled, that is, a direct mirror of what is in EPEL itself) is a whole lot easier to type correctly and a whole lot easier for someone, who is likely to be unfamiliar with Fedora's website and mirroring system and difficulty in finding anything but the current Fedora Desktop LiveCD, to find and to understand.

Also, if epel-release were to be shipped in both C5 and C6's Extras for all supported arches, then the EPEL install instructions are the same and consistent among all CentOS releases, no 'find the right EPEL release and arch' required.
 
If I want to go to the EPEL repo, it is actually easier to find from the CentOS Wiki than from the Fedora Project website's home page.

But, Alan has a good point about the complete lack of a distro tag, and Russ is completely correct about EPEL shipping packages that do supercede upstream packages without an easy to see differentiator in the package name.  But both of those points are valid whether CentOS ships epel-release (as is, rsync'd straight from EPEL) from Extras or not.  Shipping epel-release just makes it easier for users to get to EPEL.