On 06/21/2011 09:35 AM, Connie Sieh wrote:
Thank you for the prompt response.

Presumably by "de-RPMing" (extracting the full contents) of a repo 
specification RPM, one could modify the RPM, along with a new name, such 
that the RPM would now point to a different repository (say, the 
Princeton one), assuming that all of the files internal to the RPM are 
ASCII text (e.g., XML, etc.) that can be edited with an ordinary text 
editor, or that can be downloaded from the site one wishes to 
repositorize (e.g., an authentication key file).

Assuming the above to be true, what RPM command creates the repo RPM -- 
that is, from a set of modified/new files that are the internals of a 
repo RPM file, how does one recreate the repo RPM file?

Is there a hierarchical mechanism for repos, say forcing a SL system to 
use the official SL repos first (and files therein) before using what 
purport to be the nominal equivalent at a secondary sub-SL repo? That 
is, if file/utility FOO.revrelN is available in a SL RPM and also in 
another repo RPM, use the SL rpm rather than the secondary repo rpm?
If however, the new utility requires FOO.revrelN+k only available from 
the secondary, use the new one, preferably with a warning (so that the 
new RPM could be backed out if it is incompatible with the rest of the 
system, or loaded into a specific path environment only for the new 
application)?

My general experience is that RPMs for the same base release (e.g., el6 
for SL 6) built by reputable professionals seem to work -- I have 
installed kernel drivers this way when the driver would not build on my 
system but did in fact work with the kernel I was using.

Yasha Karant

> On Tue, 21 Jun 2011, Yasha Karant wrote:
>
>> Two questions on repositories:
>>
>> 1. How does one in fact install a repository on SL 6? On RHEL 5=20
>> (CentOS 5) there were RPMs that installed specific repositories, or=20
>> detailed instructions included access to GPG security authentication=20
>> keys. I have not even been able to find how to install the additional=20
>> repositories that came with SL 6 that I did not select during the
>> actual=20
>> installation of the system from the bootable install DVD. Must I=20
>> "upgrade" from the bootable DVD? Are the RPMs for the SL repos on the DV=
>> D?
>
> There are rpms which "provide" other repos.
>
> epel-release
> adobe-release-i386
> elrepo-release
> rpmforge-release
>
> There is documentation on this at
>
> /usr/share/doc/sl-release-notes-6.0/index.html
>
> -Connie Sieh
>