Troy Dawson wrote:
> Hi Art,
> Looks like you're new to the world of RHEL and Clones.
Not really, been a RH admin since picasso and I'm fairly familiar with 
the clones. I'm very used to redhat removing packages & changing their 
admin tool names (printtool vs redhat-config-printer) I consider these 
RH Annoyances, and wonder what annoys others along these lines & how to 
improve the situation...

>
> First thing to remember we (the Scientific Linux community) didn't 
> take anything out of RHEL, so if you want to ask why thing's were 
> taken out, ask RedHat, because we didn't do it, and some things we 
> just don't know.
> Now you arn't actually asking that, it looks more like you are asking 
> why some things are put in, when other's weren't.  And where to get 
> other packages that weren't included.

I know RH took them out not y'all. Wanted to know what this community 
does for workarounds when some legacy util no longer works. From my FC4 
box...

# which tree
/usr/bin/tree
# rpm -qf /usr/bin/tree
tree-1.5.0-3
# rpm -qiv tree
Name        : tree                         Relocations: /usr
Version     : 1.5.0                             Vendor: Red Hat, Inc.
Release     : 3                             Build Date: Wed 02 Mar 2005 
10:03:32 AM EST
Install Date: Fri 29 Jul 2005 07:12:47 AM EDT      Build Host: 
bugs.build.redhat.com
Group       : Applications/File             Source RPM: tree-1.5.0-3.src.rpm
Size        : 41340                            License: GPL
Signature   : DSA/SHA1, Fri 20 May 2005 02:27:28 PM EDT, Key ID 
b44269d04f2a6fd2
Packager    : Red Hat, Inc. <http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla>
URL         : http://mama.indstate.edu/users/ice/tree/
Summary     : A utility which displays a tree view of the contents of 
directories.
Description :
The tree utility recursively displays the contents of directories in a
tree-like format. Tree is basically a UNIX port of the DOS tree
utility.

Would 'tree' be a package SL would consider adding? If not, is there a 
recommended source for this package?

>
> First:  Why were some things added and not others?
> We first wanted to put in as few extra packages as possible.  This is 
> because the more packages we add, the more work it is for us.  We have 
> to keep up on the security aspects for each of these packages.
> So we had to look at if there was a good alternative, the past 
> security problems with the packages, and if the code was really being 
> maintained.
> Some, like pine, were really obvious, RedHat didn't include it because 
> of it's license, but I believe about 20% of the users at Fermilab use 
> pine, or at least used to.  So we found a good place to get it from, 
> and included it.
> Some, like midnight commander, had security holes you could drive 
> car's through.  I didn't want to have to worry about maintaining that, 
> and have the responsibility of someone's machine being hacked be on my 
> shoulders.
>
> Second:  Where to get packages that weren't included in S.L.?
> https://www.scientificlinux.org/community/repo/
> This list several repositories with packages that are compatible with 
> Scientific Linux 3.0.x, and/or Scientific Linux 4.x.
> We actually have those mirrored at
> ftp://ftp.scientificlinux.org/linux/extra/
> if we have a better connection for you.
> Also, you could check CentOS, and see if they might have a package you 
> don't find with those.
> Although we are not compatible with Fedora, many of the Fedora 
> packages can be recompiled to work with Scientific Linux if you really 
> need to. Just remember that Fedora Core 1 packages tend to compile ok 
> with Scientific Linux 3.0.x, and Fedora Core 3 packages tend to 
> compile ok with Scientific Linux 4.x.
>
Thanks very goo info! that what I was looking for FC1 for SL3.x and FC3 
for SL4.x. I'll also look at SL contribs and extra repos....

> Please don't use up2date on Scientific Linux.  It is only included 
> because other packages require it.  Use yum instead.
>
> yum list tree
> yum install tree
>
> man yum

Yes knew that SL uses yum, originally I was working off a RHEL box & was 
going to post to a RHEL list... thought I'd try it on SL and tree was 
not available via yum either. I forgot to edit the RH up2date specific 
stuff before posting here.

>>
>> The RH Manuals errata pages list "Changes to packages", but don't 
>> always explain why packages we removed or are no longer supported. 
>> Links to other information on missing commands, utils and apps would 
>> be welcome.
>>
>> http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-3-Manual/release-notes/as-x86/RELEASE-NOTES-U3-x86-en.html 
>>
>> http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-4-Manual/release-notes/as-x86/RELEASE-NOTES-U3-x86-en.html 
>>
>>
>
> We cannot link to points inside www.redhat.com, it's a legal thing.  
> And it's not just redhat that we can't do that to.

Understood. Just glad we can point to them on the mail-list ;)
>
>> The release notes to SL are very informative about which apps & 
>> packages are included
>> https://www.scientificlinux.org/distributions/4x/42/sl.release.note.42.i386 
>>
>>
> I do miss some features of ncftp, (ncftpget) but there are also 
> features in lftp that are very nice, such as scripting.
> Again, I didn't take them out, redhat did.
>
> Troy
Exactly ncftpget being removed broke quite a few scripts & was a useful 
tool. I was aware of some of the problems with mc security and have 
learned to live without it. If another terminal base file manager 
exists, I'd like to know about it. Thanks for the feedback. -Art