» How to use smart with SUSE Linux Factory

The current interim release candidate of SUSE Linux 10.1 is RC1. As probably everyone knows, it still has a few major issues with the new package management backend in YaST2, which is quite unfortunate because apart from that, 10.1 is awesome. As an alternative, you might want to use the Smart package manager, for which I provide RPM builds for SUSE Linux (FTP / mirror). My Smart RPM packages come preconfigured with my repository as well as packman and the SUSE Linux repositories (inst-source, inst-source-java and online updates). For the 10.1RC1 RPMs of smart, the preconfigured repositories are wrong, as they point to the locations where the repositories of 10.1 final will be available. Here is how to change the channel (in smart speak) / installation source (in YaST2 speak) configuration to use the SUSE Linux Factory repository instead. (and no, you can't use an online repository of 10.1RC1, that snapshot is only provided as ISO images)

Install smart

First things first, let's install the smart RPM for 10.1RC1 (if you haven't done so already). Here is how to do it with YaST2 (from a shell, as root):

yast2 --install   http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/misc/suser-guru/rpm/packages/System/smart/smart-0.41-15.guru.suse101.i686.rpm

or with this command if you have a 64bit system (AMD64 or Intel EMT64):

yast2 --install   http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/misc/suser-guru/rpm/packages/System/smart/smart-0.41-15.guru.suse101.x86_64.rpm

In case that doesn't work (because YaST2's package management backend still has some issues as of 10.1RC1), here is how to do it with rpm directly:

rpm --install -hv   http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/misc/suser-guru/rpm/packages/System/smart/smart-0.41-15.guru.suse101.i686.rpm

or like this for a 64bit system:

rpm --install -hv   http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/misc/suser-guru/rpm/packages/System/smart/smart-0.41-15.guru.suse101.x86_64.rpm

rpm might complain that you don't have the required package rpm-python installed on your system. If that's the case, use YaST2 to install rpm-python first, and then repeat the rpm command as above. You can also use rpm directly to install rpm-python:

rpm --install -hv   ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/opensuse/distribution/SL-OSS-factory/inst-source/suse/i586/rpm-python-4.4.2-37.i586.rpm

or like this on a 64bit system:

rpm --install -hv   ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/opensuse/distribution/SL-OSS-factory/inst-source/suse/x86_64/rpm-python-4.4.2-37.x86_64.rpm

Note that newer versions of smart might be available in the mean time, so please check the latest smart version/release first by pointing your web browser here: http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/misc/suser-guru/rpm/packages/System/smart/ and pass the right URL to the yast2 command above.

Remove channels for SUSE Linux 10.1 final

Now that smart is installed, we have to remove the existing smart channels for 10.1:

smart channel --remove suse-apt-base-gwdg
smart channel --remove suse-apt-update-gwdg
smart channel --remove suse-apt-security-gwdg

Add the SUSE Linux Factory channel

The next step is to add a channel for the primary SUSE Linux Factory repository:

smart channel --add factory type=rpm-md    baseurl=ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/opensuse/distribution/SL-OSS-factory/inst-source/suse

Add a mirror

And finally, let's add the ftp.heanet.ie mirror to speed up downloads and to avoid putting to much load on ftp.gwdg.de:

smart mirror --add    ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/opensuse/distribution/SL-OSS-factory    http://ftp.heanet.ie/mirrors/ftp.opensuse.org/opensuse/distribution/SL-OSS-factory

Perform the upgrade

To actually perform the upgrade, use the following command:

smart upgrade --update