A quick question on the fasttrack repo which is now up to date with upstream. Why is the fasttrack repo not in the main CentOS-Base.repo file but contrib which has never had anything is included in the main CentOS-Base.repo file?
The goal of CentOS is to be binary-compatible with upstream so fasttrack is "more important" in this regard than contrib. Upsteam ships with the main channels as well as fasttrack.
As CentOS includes the repos in one repo file rather than having separate files, this tradition should be considered for fasttrack as well.
Regards, Vandaman.
Vandaman wrote:
A quick question on the fasttrack repo which is now up to date with upstream. Why is the fasttrack repo not in the main CentOS-Base.repo file but contrib which has never had anything is included in the main CentOS-Base.repo file?
As I have stated before, CentOS does not maintain the fastrack repo for all the versions we release. IN fact ... it is only maintained (to the best of my knowledge) by me on CentOS-4 i386 and x86_64.
The goal of CentOS is to be binary-compatible with upstream so fasttrack is "more important" in this regard than contrib. Upsteam ships with the main channels as well as fasttrack.
Fast track is something that was added later by upstream ... as such it requires changes to existing packages to roll in. Contrib was rolled in at the beginning of CentOS, so it was designed with that already in there.
All of this takes time, something that I don't have an unlimited supply of.
Upstream does NOT ship with fastrack turned on .. and it is a channel on RHN, not really part of. They also have many other channels available that CentOS does not have time to provide, like MRG, the Z series repos and others. If you want all the bells and whistles that a multi-million corporation can provide, feel free to actually BUY a RHEL license :D
As CentOS includes the repos in one repo file rather than having separate files, this tradition should be considered for fasttrack as well.
I will look at rolling in changes to the CentOS-Base.repo file ... however, if someone has ever changed their file, then it will not get updated anyway as a CentOS-Base.repo.rpmnew will be created in that case.
I am certainly open to do things that makes CentOS better and I have no problems making changes that are convenient, but I also do not think that downloading a text file for an added repo is that difficult.
Johnny Hughes wrote:
As I have stated before, CentOS does not maintain the fastrack repo for all the versions we release. IN fact ... it is only maintained (to the best of my knowledge) by me on CentOS-4 i386 and x86_64.
Fast track is something that was added later by upstream ... as such it requires changes to existing packages to roll in. Contrib was rolled in at the beginning of CentOS, so it was designed with that already in there.
I agree with you though for the benefit of those who may not be aware, this post by the upstream QE Manager illustrates what the fasttrack channel entails
https://www.redhat.com/archives/nahant-list/2006-April/msg00003.html
Fasttrack packages should make it into the next Quarterly Update so with time they join into the main repo.
I am certainly open to do things that makes CentOS better and I have no problems making changes that are convenient, but I also do not think that downloading a text file for an added repo is that difficult.
I did not download the file because I thought it was easier to hack it into the existing CentOS-Base.repo file. http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/2008-December/069850.html
The reason I asked on the mailing list was not because I did not want to download a separate txt file, but if the CentOS 4 branch is running in a certain way, it makes it easier if those newly joining and those established carry on the old path.
Certainly from CentOS 4.8 it would be easier to slot it into the main CentOS-Base.repo file and then ship with it disabled. For now people could just download the text file.
Regards, Vandaman.
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Johnny Hughes -
Vandaman