[CentOS-devel] Shipping an EPEL release

On 09/13/2012 06:42 PM, Jeff Sheltren wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 13, 2012 at 8:32 AM, Karanbir Singh<mail-lists at karan.org>  wrote:
>> hi guys,
>>
>> One bit of feedback at LinuxCon this year from people was that we should
>> ship epel with a lower barrier to entry. And I have mixed feelings about
>> that. But I wanted to know what everyone else thinks about :
>>
> EPEL is the first thing I add to most servers I manage (CentOS or
> RHEL).  I would like the added convenience of having it included by
> default -- either of the options you listed would be OK for me from
> that perspective.  However, including it in the base OS doesn't make a
> lot of sense to me as we look for a way to scale it out to include
> other repos as well.  Adding those to CentOS Extras seems like the way
> to go to make it a low barrier of entry to enable repos (I assume with
> some sort of qualification before we include them).
>
> I have to say though, I rarely use CentOS Extras, and I'd be more
> likely to stick with adding EPEL in a kickstart file.  I understand
> that's not for everyone though.
>
> <snip from kickstart>
> repo --name=epel --baseurl=http://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/fedora-epel/5/x86_64/
> [...]
> %packages
> @base
> epel-release
> [...]
> </snip>
>
     That IS easy to do when you one kickstarts. But this applies to 
people who do many installs and have a certain infrastructure. Those 
people have no need for the instructions in the Centos wiki or for help 
in IRC.
     IRC experience shows that most users who need packages from 
epel/elrepo/IUS and come by #centos have no fscking idea about how to 
install / activate . I've seen cases where 30 min were needed to just 
grasp OUR wiki and Fedora's. The record I've seen was 45 min needed for 
the Fedora part.
     For those who do know, the barrier does not exist and ks / puppet / 
chef etc is the normal way.  They probably already have private mirrors, 
maybe with the needed packages already prepared / downloaded from the 
upstream channels they need . But for those who do not have prior 
knowledge, like it or not, yum install epel-release is way easier than 
to follow "go read our wiki page on adding 3rd party repos and pay 
attention to priorities". Yes, I know, they should read/learn. But 
helping them by excluding the "hunt for epel-release and install it" 
part will not hurt.