14 DAY TRIAL // One of the most important things a Linux distribution is based on is security. And to be secured, a Linux distribution needs to be updated as often as possible. Being up-to-date is so important that every major Linux distribution comes with its own update program like Ubuntu has Synaptic, SuSE has YaST, Debian has apt-get and Fedora has Yum.
Some of these update programs have a GUI interface that makes things a lot easier for the novice or even the expert users themselves. Not all the time you want to use the command line for updating and installing programs because of the sometimes very long commands and also because less information can be shown in a text console rather than in a GUI interface.
Yum Extender is an update program for Fedora Linux that has the GUI interface I was talking about earlier. Installing, uninstalling and updating are easy and everyone should be able to do it. However, it's wrote in Python and GTK+ which makes it very, very resource consuming. To make an impression about just how resource consuming Yum Extender is, on a simple update process, Python (the language Yum Extender is written in) will use about 200MB of RAM. That's A LOT for a single application. And this isn't all. From what I've noticed, the more you use it in a day, the slower and more RAM consuming it gets. So, aren't there any less resource consuming alternatives?, you may ask. Well, yes and no. The other GUI interfaces to Yum are fresh started projects and don't have even half of Yum Extender's features. As for other package managers, there was a long time ago something similar to Yum for Fedora, called up2date but it was very bugged; I'm not sure it even exists anymore.
When you'll first run it, you'll notice it takes a rather long time before actually use the program. This happens because Yum is initializing the repositories (places that contain software for your distribution) and building the package list. But if you think about just how many packages Yum has to read at start-up (almost 10.000), you'll have the impression it doesn't take THAT long to start.
After the repositories initialization, Yum offers a list of available updates for programs already installed and, for those who don't know what every program does, a brief and simple description for every program. You will probably notice the Changelog and files tabs not showing anything. There is an option in the menu enabling those tabs but it's really NOT recommended to select that option as it takes ten times longer to load all the repositories.
If you want a specific file or program you were using in a previous version of Fedora, click on the ?Install? button, then type part of the name in the Filter and it will list similar or the exact program. From there, installing is pretty straightforward. Just select the check box next to the name, press ?Add to Queue?, then press the ?Queue? button, and finally, ?Process Queue?.
Another great (and new) thing about the Queue section is that the selected packages stay there until successfully installed or manually removed. Why is this a good thing? Well, let's say you select about 50 packages to install, and one of them is missing a dependency; the package stays in queue. In the past versions, if an error occurred (eg, missing a dep), the package would have been automatically removed and you would have to pass through choosing the packages all over again.
In the past, installing programs was a real headache, even the best of us might have had problems with dependencies (programs or files required to install another program). Without those dependencies, the program won't install at all so, we would have to lose some more precious time to find those dependencies and finally install the program.
Removing programs in the 'Remove' button is just as easy. If you don't know the exact name, type what you remember in the Filter and it will find the exact or similar name of the program. Next, you have to check the program you want to remove and press ?Remove?.
Repositories are a central place where data is stored and maintained and where Yum Extender is looking for updates and software for your system. There are many repositories available for your choosing, but rather than manually editing other's configuration files, Yum Extender makes it very easy. When you have located a new repository site and want to use it, you have to left-click a repository in the ?Repos? button, click ?Edit?, choose Repositories, then add a name and the website address.
The ?Output? section just lets you know if a program was properly installed or updated. If sometime, you bump into an issue or you miss a dependency, you will be notified in that section with a message stating exactly what went wrong and what could be done to repair the issue.
Another thing about Yum Extended you'll probably notice is the ?Group? section. This section works with groups that are defined by the repository provider. The group section is split into two windows, the Group Window and the Package Window.
The group window contains all the groups available. If right next to the group name is shown a disk, it means that every package in that group is already installed. You can add the whole group to queue for installation by right-clicking on its name.
The package window has a Mandatory, Default and Optional tab. Each tab contains the list of packages for the currently selected group. Right next to every package?s name, there is a check box that shows if the package is already installed. You can easily add packages to queue for installation by right-clicking on the package name.
The Good:
Thanks to it, installing, updating and removing software in Fedora are now easy tasks. It has a nice output section that prints exactly what happens at the time, so any issue can be easily repaired and because of the Queue feature, you will not lose the selected packages.
The Bad:
Because it's written in Python, it uses way too many resources. By default, the Changelog tab is not showing any information, although it can be activated at the expense of increasing the load time with about thirty minutes.
The Truth:
For the moment, Yum Extended is the only usable package manager for Fedora Linux. Until a lighter alternative (with at least the same features), we really don't have a choice.
Check out some screenshots below:
