Section 6.5. A yum GUI Tool

6.5. A yum GUI Tool

There are some administrators who need the GUI. Visual aids do help some become better administrators. Graphical yum-based tools are currently under development. The only one I've found being actively developed as of this writing is the Yum Extender. For more information, see http://linux.rasmil.dk/yumex/ or http://sourceforge.net/projects/yumex/. The Yum Extender is available from the Fedora Extras repository, as the yumex RPM. A brief examination of the Yum Extender has helped me understand more of what's available from various yum repositories.

Note

As of this writing, Red Hat developers are working on the Package Updater, also known as Pup, to replace the Red Hat Update Agent. It may also replace the current system-config-packages tool. I cover the Yum Extender because it is already a useful yum GUI tool. And the Fedora selection of a yum GUI tool is subject to change.

Because the Yum Extender is still under development, I suspect that a number of the options in this section will change, especially if it is formally adapted as a Fedora package. Therefore, we'll limit the discussion to a brief view of the capabilities of Yum Extender. If you've read the chapter up to this point, everything you see here should be familiar.

When installed, you can only run the Yum Extender from the GUI. You can start it with the Applications -> System Tools -> Yum Extender command or with the yumex command in a GUI console. You're prompted for the root password, after which you see the Yum Extender, with currently configured repositories, as shown in Figure 6-9.

Figure 6-9. The Yum Extender

Similar to Synaptic for apt, the Yum Extender is a genuine front-end to the yum command. You can watch the output messages as they occur. After you run a command in the Yum Extender, click the Output button. Watch as the messages associated with installing, upgrading, or removing your packages scroll across the screen.

6.5.1. Basic Configuration

Before you run the Yum Extender, it's important to make sure that you've configured some basic parameters:

If you need to configure a Proxy Server between your network and the remote repositories, click Edit -> Preferences. Place a check mark in the box associated with Use Proxy. A http_proxy text box will appear, where you can enter the URL information for your proxy server.

If you want to avoid installation or updates to certain packages, you can place them on the exclude list. Click Edit -> Exclude List. This opens the Exclude List window where you can specify the packages that you do not want updated.

The list is straightforward; for example, if you want to exclude all kernel* and firefox* packages from updates, just include those terms (wildcards are allowed) in the Exclude List text box.

6.5.2. Adding More Repositories

The available menus are straightforward. You can add as many repositories as you need. Any changes that you make are reflected in files in the /etc/yum.repos.d directory. If you want to add new repositories, use the following steps:

1.	Click Install Repository to start the Repository Installer shown in Figure 6-10. Figure 6-10. Selecting additional repositories As you can see, there is a wide variety of pre-configured repositories which you can add to your system.
2.	Select the repositories of your choice, click Add, and click OK to confirm.
3.	Close the Repository Installer window to return to the main Yum Extender menu.
4.	Select the repositories of your choice and click Refresh to download associated metadata.

Alternatively, if there's a repository not in the Repository Installer list, you can add it through a different menu, following these steps:

1.

Click Edit -> Repositories. This opens the Edit Repository menu.

2.

In the Edit Repository menu, click File -> New. This opens the New Repository window. Enter the name of your choice in the associated text box. This opens a new Edit Repository menu.

3.

You'll need to enter several parameters, as shown in Table 6-1.

Table 6-1. Editing in a new repository

Item	Description
Title	Title of repository; used with yum to define contents.
Name	Name of repository; often includes parameters such as $releasever (Release Version), as defined through the /etc/yum.conf distroverpkg file; and $basearch (Base Architecture), as defined by the archwork.py script in the /usr/lib/python-2.3/site-packages/yum directory.
URL Type	There are two options; baseurl means that the URL that you specify points directly to the repository; Mirrorlist means that the URL points to a file with a list of mirrors, as described earlier.
URLs	You can add URLs for the repositories or mirror lists of your choice directly in this text box.
gpgkey	If there's a GPG key associated with your selected repository, you can add it here; naturally, you'll need to enable GPG checks.
FlagsEnabled	If the flag is active (1), your system will access this repository.
Flagsgpgcheck	If the flag is active (1), your system will confirm GPG (GNU Privacy Guard) signatures for each package downloaded from this repository.

4.

Select OK when you're finished. You'll still need to confirm configuration as was done previously.

6.5.3. Installing Packages

While you can install packages from your repositories more quickly from the command line interface, the GUI can help you browse what is available. Now that you've selected the active repositories for your system, click the Install button. Browse through the packages available for installation. If you highlight one, you can see some information about that package, including the identified repository, as shown in Figure 6-11.

Figure 6-11. Selecting packages to install

The installation process is straightforward. Select the packages you want to install, and then click the Install button. After the yum database is processed, you're shown a list of packages to be installed, along with dependencies. Click OK to confirm. When the process is complete, you'll see a message such as "Install completed OK."

Tip

If you see a dependency error during the update process, the most common cause is your settings associated with updating the Linux kernel. In other words, if the package you want to install requires a later version of the kernel, you have to decide whether to accept a kernel update, with all the associated risks.

6.5.4. Updating Packages

The update process is straightforward. Click the Update button. Browse through the packages available for installation. If you highlight one, you can see some information about that package, including the associated repository.

The update process is straightforward. Select the packages you want to install, and then click the Install button. After the yum database is processed, you're shown a list of packages to be installed, along with dependencies. Click OK to confirm. When the process is complete, you'll see a message such as "Install completed OK."

6.5.5. Removing Packages

The package removal process is also straightforward. Click the Remove button. Browse through the packages already installed on your computer. If you highlight one, you can see some information about that package, including the associated repository.

For example, I used the Yum Extender to remove the Apache Web Server from my system. As you can see in Figure 6-12, there are a lot of packages that depend on Apache, the httpd RPM package. I clicked OK to confirm, and all the packages noted in the Dependencies list were also uninstalled. When the process is complete, you'll see a message such as "Remove completed OK."

Figure 6-12. Confirming packages to remove

6.5.6. Using Your Own Commands

There will be times where the GUI tool won't be enough. If that is your situation, you do not need to exit. If you know how yum works from the command line, the Yum Extender allows you to enter the commands of your choice. Click the Run Cmd button.

Now you can configure the yum commands of your choice. The drop-down command text box includes all the yum command options listed earlier in this chapter. You can enter the data you need in the Yum parameters text box, as shown in Figure 6-13.

Figure 6-13. Running a yum command in the GUI

You're not limited to the -y and -c flags shown in the figure. If you need to enter a different flag, you can include it in the Yum Command text box. For example, you might want to run the following command:

yum -R 2 groupinfo "Administrative Tools" 

If so, type in -R 2 groupinfo in the Yum Command text box. Click the Execute button when you're ready. When you do, the Yum Extender takes you to the Output window to give you the output information that you asked for.