[CentOS] Dag's comment at linuxtag

Mon Jun 29 15:20:49 UTC 2009
Radu-Cristian FOTESCU <beranger5ca at yahoo.ca>

> A quick look at http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=centos
> shows that a great majority of the packages are not even
> close to being "up-to-date", and that is a good thing for
> those us of who care more about stability than eyecandy.

That can't be other way. For instance, you can't build GIMP 2.4 or 2.6
unless you you upgrade to a newer GTK+, which would impact on a lot of
apps.

OTOH, Dag is in a funny position: he's the main maintainer of RPMforge,
which has 2 main issues: 
(1) It's broken, at least partially. Try install audacious for one.
(2) It's incompatible with EPEL. Try install MPlayer and VLC with EPEL
enabled.

To workaround some of the issues and make CentOS 5.3 a suitable distro
for my Acer laptop (except that I don't use wireless and I haven't 
even tried to), I've made my own repo here:
    http://odiecolon.lastdot.org/

Read the first-page text and rationale *very* carefully!

It's therefore an ugly hack to allow:
*** the use of the following packages from RPMforge:
(1) gstreamer-plugins-bad gstreamer-plugins-ugly gstreamer-ffmpeg
(2) mplayer mplayer-fonts mplayer-skins mplayerplug-in smplayer
(3) vlc
*** the regular use of EPEL for everything else;
*** the use of newer packages, such as GIMP 2.3.15 as an "almost-2.4"
alternative to the obsolete 2.2.12;
*** the use of other (unavailable in EPEL or newer) packages, including
"cosmetic mood enhancers":
(i) gnome-dustwave-theme 0.1, a mix of two themes introduced with 
Ubuntu Jaunty: it uses Dust for Metacity, and New Wave for the GTK+ 
decorations. Compiz effects *must* be disabled. 
(ii) gtk-nimbus-theme 0.1.2, the latest default theme that comes with 
OpenSolaris 2009.06.

As I am not even on my home continent these days and I can't fix any
reported issue right now (oh well, but does Dag ever fix RPMforge?),
I have not announced this repo in any public place, but it was 
nevertheless announced on epel-devel-list:
https://www.redhat.com/archives/epel-devel-list/2009-June/msg00103.html

Be free to test and report.

Thanks,
R-C aka Béranger



      __________________________________________________________________
Looking for the perfect gift? Give the gift of Flickr! 

http://www.flickr.com/gift/