[CentOS] Centos Gotcha: YUM Groupinstall

[Robert Heller]

At Tue, 16 Aug 2011 18:32:43 -0700 CentOS mailing list <centos at centos.org> wrote:

> 
> Folks
> 
> I have encountered a situation with YUM that isn't what I expected.
> 
> Let's suppose I want to install a group, call it G.  My first 
> question would be -- is the group already installed.  Realize all of 
> this is scripted.
> 
> So, I use
>    yum groupinfo
> and I see the list of installed groups, and those not yet installed.
> 
> If group G is in the list of installed groups, one would think that 
> there's no point in issuing a "groupinstall".
> 
> But, to my surprise, a group can be listed as "installed", only to 
> find that a groupinstall will actually do a lot of installs.
> 
> So, I had to adapt my script to perform a "groupinfo G", parse the 
> modules, and individually test them to see if they need installation.
> 
> I do not understand this behavior -- group G is shown as "installed", 
> but it really isn't.

I think what is happening is that some sub-set of group G, probably to
satisfy various dependcies for rpms in group A, B and F (say).  Elements
of Group G have been installed, but not ALL of group G has been
installed, and thus group G is *partitically* installed.  In a sense
group G is neither uninstalled nor fully installed.  This 'group'
business is not 'atomic' as are individual rpms are 'atomic': a single
rpm package is either installed or not installed -- you cannot properly
install 'part' of an rpm, but you can install 'part' of a group [of
rpms]. 

> 
> David Kurn
> 
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>                                                                                                   

-- 
Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933 / heller at deepsoft.com
Deepwoods Software        -- http://www.deepsoft.com/
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