YDL Install Problems

[Robert Fernandes]

On Sunday, September 7, 2003, at 12:23 PM, Clinton MacDonald wrote:

> Robert:
>
> On Sun, 2003-09-07 at 09:29, Robert Fernandes wrote:
>> On Saturday, September 6, 2003, at 08:39 PM, Clinton C.MacDonald 
>> wrote:
>>> Installing software is still a complete mystery to me, though it is 
>>> my
>>> next topic to learn.
>>
>> If, however, you have a dsl or cable modem connection to the internet,
>> you can use one of two tools for software installation that work very
>>  well. These are apt and yum.
>
> Just last week I got DSL, and am trying the yum updates as I write 
> this.
> Very smooth, so far (and, at the same time I am listening to the NPR
> stream in the background -- I could get used to DSL really fast).
>
>> Okay, when that is done, type "yum install openoffice" and enter.
>> This should download and install openoffice and you should be good
>> to go.
>
> Alright, here is my biggest question: where can I find the "Master 
> List"
> of all applications (not just updates) that are available as yummy
> packages? How does one know to type "yum install openoffice," but not
> "yum install flyingcar"? I really want the flying car software for my
> PowerBook, but I'm not sure it is available for PPC, yet. I don't even
> know whether the flying car software exists, and before I install it, I
> would like to see a short description ("The Flying Car software is an
> open source tool that allows computers running the Linux operating
> system on recent Apple hardware to hover above the ground and to fly at
> speeds approaching 75 mph."). Where does Terra Soft/Yellow Dog hide 
> this
> information?

There is a config file for yum: /etc/yum.conf - it contains urls to 
where yum should look for packages and updates. Here is the base url:

http://ftp.yellowdoglinux.com/pub/yellowdog/yum/3.0/base/RPMS.base/

This will give you a listing of available packages but no descriptions. 
There are GUI tools for apt (synaptic - nothing for yum yet, though) 
which give you descriptions of packages but I have never used them so 
someone else will have to help you there. You can also check out the 
yum homepage:

http://linux.duke.edu/projects/yum/index.ptml

which has a listing of other repositories that you can add to your 
yum.conf file:

http://linux.duke.edu/projects/yum/repos/

I'm not an expert on adding additional repositories to yum.conf so 
maybe someone out there can help us?

-Bob