On 4/18/2014 11:45 AM, Kevin Stange wrote: > On 04/18/2014 07:26 AM, Martin Jackson wrote: >> Hello, >> >> With the changes in CentOS, would it be possible now to include the >> epel-release package in the main CentOS repositories? I believe this >> would help make the process of setting CentOS up a bit more convenient >> and accessible for both new users (who may have an awkward time finding >> and installing the epel release package) as well as more veteran >> administrators, who could effectively choose to enable epel by default >> by including it in kickstarts and so on. > My suggestion for this, if you're already messing with kickstarts > anyway, is to simply add the EPEL repository URL to your kickstart file, > and add epel-release to the %packages. Lines like this would do it: > > repo --name=epel --baseurl=http://mirror.steadfast.net/epel/6/x86_64/ > Yes, thank you. I learned the wisdom of kickstarts much later - I found Scientific a bit easier to use at first because it does offer several such -release packages in their main repo. My point, I believe, is that including epel-release in the main CentOS repo will make for a better experience for those who wish to use EPEL, and offers very little in the way of risk for those who don't. I believe it will be a better user experience for those coming from Debian-based distributions, who might be wondering where small but very useful utilities like htop and sshpass are, as well as many useful scripting language modules and all the other goodies there. I realize the current bar for getting EPEL installed on CentOS isn't exactly high, but I also don't think it's especially obvious for people who are new to it, either. I understand there's going to be a desire to not diverge from Upstream, which this would mean, but I also think the benefits of including the package outweigh the disadvantages. Thanks, Marty