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Smart Package Manager


Shadowchaser
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For those how are not aware what Smart Package Manager is , "Smart is a meta-package manager in the spirit of APT, YUM, URPMI and others. It’s a cross-distribution tool that can manage RPM, DEB and Slackware packages but what makes Smart apart is a dependency-solving algorithm that outperforms other package managers. It currently supports several repository formats, including those used by APT, YUM and URPMI. By the way, in Smart, repositories are called “channels”."-FedoraNews.

 

I found out that Mandriva included this in 2006 powerpack so i decided to install it to try it out. After adding Cooker,Cooker-Contrib, Main,Contrib,PLF N-F,PLF-Free i decided to give it a run. It was so simple and informative, it offers special features like Locking a file and assigning priorities to Channel (repositories).

 

I adding acouple of screenshots

Smart Package View

Channels!

Channel Information.

 

I believe Smart is defenatly worth checking out.

 

moved from Forum Discussion by mystified

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I tried it and was unable to configure it in Mandriva as all files were read only, thus I only have cooker repos and no stable urpmi repos... Looks like yet another bug. I have used smart with other distros already and never experienced the probs I have in Mandy with it.

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Arctic i have no such problems adding stable channels, are you running as user or root? also it could be that the channels are improperly setup. in the screenshot channel information you can see how it should be setup. Also i have my setup to excute as root user. let me know maybe i can help ya set yours up. :)

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I was able to run it ok, configure the channels, and apply updates as root with the command: smart --gui

 

Shadowchasers images were helpful as I wasn't sure how to configure the channels. IMO, the interface is a little clunky, not too intuitive, and with not enough online help. But it does look like it could be a useful tool and I'll probably keep using it until I'm as familiar with it as with urpmi and rpmdrake

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I am running it as root and - it is not the first time I use that tool. The funny thing is that it does not give me any error messages other than: files are read only. I don't know, but maybe I simply got a borked package for smart from my mirror. I will reinstall it from another mirror. Maybe that helps... it would not be the first package that got screwed up on my Mandy test-partition. :D

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Jon, the reason to use it is that the main weak point of urpmi it not the tool itself, but the dependency on the ftp mirrors.

 

I recently had an error when trying to use urpmi that said: "that's not a nice response from the ftp server". I had to try again a few times, and suddenly, it did work.

 

Smart remedies this weakness by allowing parallel ftp mirrors for the same packages/repositories; read the features page: http://labix.org/smart/features

Mirror precedence is dynamically computed based on the history of downloads of all mirrors available for a given origin URL (including the origin site itself). The fastest mirrors and with less errors are chosen. When errors occur, the next mirror in the queue is tried.

 

Seems to me like a real improvement - one cannot (apparently) expect mirrors to always function.

 

That said, I haven't tried it yet.

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................. the main weak point of urpmi it not the tool itself, but the dependency on the ftp mirrors.

Absolutely agree 100%.

"Smart" seems to solve that problem now. :thumbs:

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Smart is a good compliment to URPMI at the moment. I actually use ksmartray (system auto-update tool) more so than the interface (smart --gui), but it is a good tool. I tipically set up smart to use the synthesis.hdlist.cz (compressed metadata file) and for URPMI I prefer the hdlist.cz (uncompressed metadata file) so that I can track the changes occuring to my favorite packages. The compressed file really speeds up the process of updating my box, but I should note that I'm running cooker, so most users won't update their box as much as i do and ksmarttray may not be necessary. However, an update repository could be set up in smart and ksmartray could auto update your Mandriva sytem just like WindowsUpdate. I hope Mandriva tweeks the Smart interface before they make the fulltime switch so that it's a lot simpler and more intuitive.

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I decided to try it out. With 2006 (installed from 2005 through urpmi), I just urpmi smart-gui, smart-update, and smart (along with ksmarttray). I then went to the easyurpmi site to add mirrors, assuming that there were no mirrors set up on it initially. Then I decided to use it to see if there were any updates. Much to my surprise, there were already mirrors configured....Cooker mirrors....so now I am running Cooker. As an experienced user, this is not a real problem, but could be for a beginner or novice. I had gotten fed up with Cooker being way more unstable than it had been historically, so I hadn't used it in about a year, but apparently, I am back now.

 

Anyway, my opinion of smart is I give it a B-:

Cooker mirrors set up initially: bad

Non-intuitive interface: bad (I thought this tool should be used to help the inexperienced)

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