Talk:Yum (software)

Relationship with DNF
I slightly expanded and cleaned up the text at the end of the introduction about the relationship between YUM and DNF. First of all, I deleted the mention of "libsolv" - which is about an implementation detail of DNF, not about YUM - and "currently being developed", which is true about all current software. Secondly, I moved it to its own paragraph, because it's not related to the paragraph it was in, and anyway it's important enough. Thirdly, I added a summary of the reasons that Fedora switched to DNF. The reason about better dependency resolution appears to have been the intention for the mention of "libsolv", but this is more clear for non-experts.

I hope someone more familiar with the DNF/YUM situation will improve and expand on this, and perhaps add something also to the History section. In particular, we should say something about the status of DNF in distributions other than Fedora, such as RHEL and CentOS. It is very strange to me that Fedora added DNF almost ten years ago for seemingly compelling reasons, and switched to DNF as the default package manager almost five years ago with great fanfare, yet there seems to be zero mention of DNF in the communities of any other RPM-based Linux. StormWillLaugh (talk) 20:41, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

gpgkey and other matters of what YUM does
It would be nice if this page succinctly described some of the details of what YUM does behind the scenes, such as the fact that it uses gpgkey to perform signature verification when downloading packages. I don't think it needs in-depth explanations of this behavior, but if someone (for instance) wanted to know whether there was any kind of signature/hash comparison going on to provide behind the scenes assurance that YUM won't just happily download malware without at least trying to check it against a digital signature, it would be helpful if they came to this page and found a sentence like "YUM provides signature verification behind the scenes for all package downloads via gpgkey." Unfortunately, I have stared at the page for four or five minutes and still haven't come up with a likely place to stick information like that. -- Apotheon (talk) 17:59, 11 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Belongs in the intro-paragraph, or maybe in the paragraph talking about history where it says yum was implemented in python. "Under the hood, yum depends on  RPM, which is a packaging standard for digital distribution of apps, which automatically uses  hashes and  digisigs to verify the authorship and integrity of such apps; unlike some app stores, which serve a similar function, yum nor RPM provide built-in support for  proprietary restrictions on copying of packages by endusers."  I will go ahead and stick this version in the main article.  74.192.84.101 (talk) 23:54, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Repository links
I don't think there should be repository links on this page. This article is about *what is* yum, not a man page or a doc for yum. This is the reason why I have removed all links that do not deal with the question of "what is yum" nor provide further information about the project. We can't possibly provide a list of links to all existing repositories, so why single out one or two? --Mr. Icon 23:53, 10 February 2006 (UTC)


 * pretty please give us the repo links! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.85.136.210 (talk) 15:03, 17 April 2009 (UTC)


 * While I agree that wikipedia is not a HOWTO, or a tutorial, it seems that some links to the Notable repos (there are thousands of minor ones) belongs in the article. As you point out, this wikipedia article should be about what yum is... but in fact, what yum really is would simply be a tool for accessing repos, no more and no less.  Repos that belong in the list off the top of my head, might be incomplete:  RHN, EPEL, CentOS, CentOS Extras, rpmFusion/elRepo/DagWieers, OpenSUSE (methinks you can use yum there not just zypper), DVDROM (accessing the 'local media repo' is a key feature of yum), and Generic Custom Repo Of Your Choice (another key feature of yum).  74.192.84.101 (talk) 23:54, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

ydl
i got confused with yellow dog linux because I'm dumb —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.90.182.183 (talk • contribs) 00:11, 3 September 2006 (UTC-7)

Infobox
I added an Infobox. Marycontrary 19:35, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

dependency hell
I think it's POV to present dependency hellas the only link in the see also section. It reflects negatively on yum. Maybe better some links to apt, rpm, etc. and the link to dependency hell in a section with criticism. I am going to remove the link. --Ben T/C 16:03, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * It was prolly not intended to be POV... yum is designed to *solve* dependency hell, by automagically resolving package-dependencies and such. Whether yum does well or poorly at solving dependency-hell, is a subject that can be criticized, and is roughly equivalent to criticizing yum itself.  Suggest the link be put back, if nobody disagrees with it now in 2013.  74.192.84.101 (talk) 23:54, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Synaptic
Is YUM similar to Synaptic ?. --Nopetro (talk) 13:30, 13 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Yum is similar to apt-get and fink. I suspect but am not certain that synaptic uses yum on RPM based platforms. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.210.217.64 (talk) 02:13, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
 * There are gui-based tools like yumex which are wrappers around yum; synaptic + apt-get is roughly similar to yumex + yum, ditto for UbuntuSoftwareCenter + apt-get. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 23:54, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Automatic metadata syncing
This is listed as an advantage to yum without explicitly explaining what it is. Is the metadata configuration for the system, configuration of the yum package manager, or something else? Stephen Rasku (talk) 19:14, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Both. Metadata is for the packages, i.e. the apps/libraries/toolkits/etc that constitute the system.  Since the yum-package-manager itself is one of those apps, yum automatically syncs its own metadata, as well as the metadata for all the other installed packages.  74.192.84.101 (talk) 23:54, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

typo in 'yum-updated'
I believe that the program "yum-updated" the text refers to does not exist. The error seems to have its cause in a type, as it should be "yum-updatesd", not the 's' before the d. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ByronBates (talk • contribs) 19:14, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

history is too vague
Here is an external link I inserted, which was promptly removed by the XLinkBot automated wiki-robot. Appropriately, since this is a personal blog, not actually a Reliable Source. That said, this personal blog entry has plenty of details about the history of yum (see my other edit inserting when-when-when tags into the yum article), so if somebody would like to use the info provided by this blogpost in combination with some more-reliable-sources they do the work to dredge up, here tis. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 23:54, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
 * External Links. * History of yum versus RHN and RHEL

External links modified
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Proper acronym for YUM
I see that in both this article and the related/linked article "Yellow Dog Linux" there is inconsistency in the acronyms used. The acronym is lowercase in some places and uppercase in others. Upon consultation with the original developer (Kai Staats, then CEO of Terra Soft Solutions) I was asked to make all instances uppercase. Likewise YUM's precursor YUP. This will require a title change as well, so the article will need to be moved. I'll go ahead and do that unless anyone objects. Heimhenge (talk) 17:30, 7 November 2017 (UTC)


 * The official website http://yum.baseurl.org/ uses "yum" likewise the logo uses "yum" File:Yum.png, so there is at least some reason to call it yum. Fuse809  (contribs · email · talk · uploads) 08:48, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 10 November 2017

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: no consensus. Not seeing much agreement here as to the proposal as first set down. The idea to rename this article to the acronym is possibly the best title for this page; however, to be in accord with MOS:CAPSACRS, the title must be YUM (software). This decision means that any editor may open a new discussion to find a better title for this page at any time. Happy Holidays to all! (closed by page mover)  Paine Ellsworth   put'r there 19:55, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Yellow Dog Updater, Modified → Yellowdog Updater, Modified – I tried to make this title change (and other edits) to reflect the correct name of the software. Specifically, "Yellowdog" as one word is correct. The existing "Yellow Dog" --Heimhenge (talk) 18:55, 18 November 2017 (UTC)as two words is wrong, according to the original developer Kai Staats. Alas, Wiki thinks the two names are the same, and tells me the page already exists. I'd appreciate any help available, thanks. Heimhenge (talk) 22:14, 10 November 2017 (UTC) --Relisting. — usernamekiran (talk)  00:45, 19 November 2017 (UTC)  --Relisting. — usernamekiran (talk)   06:42, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Move to Yum (software). I agree it should be moved, but not to "Yellowdog Updater, Modified". I doubt half the people who encounter yum would have any idea that it stands for "Yellowdog Updater, Modified". Per WP:COMMONNAME, it should be moved to Yum (software) (which currently redirects here). TJRC (talk) 22:59, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Move to Yum (software) per TJRC. For future reference,, simple typo fixes can be speedily moved at WP:RM/TR (though in this case there's a more WP:AT policy-compliant name for us to use).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  05:36, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Agreed That is a more logical move given existing redirects. But then the page Yum (software) would have to become "YUM (software)" Would that cause any problems? As explained earlier, that was one of the two corrections the original developer requested that I make.--Heimhenge (talk) 18:00, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep it where it is Heimhenge your discussion with Kai Staats isn't verifiable, if you can provide a link to your discussion that is verifiable please do otherwise it's kind of mute. Besides the original Linux distribution from which its name is derived, Yellow Dog Linux, had Yellow and Dog separate so it makes sense that the package manager named after it would also have them separate. Fuse809  (contribs · email · talk · uploads) 08:56, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Verifiability understood but I thought it only applied to actual content. This is just a change in the capitalization of an acronym. My communication with the original developer (Kai Staats) was via email and phone. He told me that the original product they developed at Terra Soft was indeed named "Yellow Dog Linux" (two words), but when they developed the updater they combined the words to "Yellowdog" so they could use the pronounceable acronym "YUM" instead of "YDUM". Same with YUM's predecessor YUP. You can see those words combined in the graphic on Yellow_Dog_Updater,_Modified, and that graphic was uploaded in 2006.--Heimhenge (talk) 18:00, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I'll accept the new name based on the graphic, but if you follow the graphic we'll have to change YUM to yum, as it's used in the graphic. Fuse809  (contribs · email · talk · uploads) 08:54, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I figured that was adequate verification. But the name of the image being lowercase is just the way some artists label their graphics, and not to be taken as defining what the acronym for the actual product would be. And that has to be YUM as per the developer. Or are you saying we should change the name of the image to YUM.png?--Heimhenge (talk) 17:38, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
 * The name of the file isn't what I was referring to, I was referring to the name inside the graphic. It says "yum" with the full form of the name below it. It's one piece of verifiable evidence we have, along with its website which also calls it "yum". If we can't verify your discussion with him, we can't act on it accordingly. For example, I've emailed Lennart Poettering and learned he uses Fedora as his primary OS but I haven't added that to his respective article because my discussion with him is unverifiable. Fuse809  (contribs · email · talk · uploads) 20:21, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Understood, thanks. So what would happen if Kim Meyrick, the original uploader of that image, uploaded a revised image to Wiki Commons showing the preferred acronym "YUM" in all caps? Meyrick, at Duke University, was highly involved in the YUM development process and wrote most of the documentation. There's no question that it should be YUM, but I'm struggling with the verifiability requirement. Your feedback has been most helpful.--Heimhenge (talk) 19:16, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
 * If there was plenty of verifiable evidence that supported his upload sure. This picture is actually used on yum's official website http://yum.baseurl.org/chrome/site/yum.png. The yum website uses the lower case yum name. All I'm asking is for some verifiable information here that trumps the official website which uses the name "yum". Fuse809  (contribs · email · talk · uploads) 00:32, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth, neither the man page entry nor the official site capitalize all the letters. The man page calls it "yum" (the command itself is all lower case, so this is unsurprising); and the project's own page seems to call it "yum" as well (e.g., "Use Transifex to submit translations to yum"), although it capitalizes the 'Y' for headings and when it's used as the first word of a sentence. TJRC (talk) 00:45, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Ya all we have to say it should be YUM is your say so Heimhenge. We have ample evidence to say it should be "yum" though. Fuse809  (contribs · email · talk · uploads) 00:48, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Like many acronyms, YUM has no "official" format. The developer notes that in the command line interface, everything is lowercase (as in "$ yum update"). So usage can distort naming conventions. If you're looking for an authoritative verification, the best reference is Duke (who wrote the documentation) https://webhome.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/General/yum_article/yum_article/ and Redhat https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/5/html/Deployment_Guide/c1-yum.html (on which the app was based). Both use YUM in all caps, and majority usage has to count for something. Heimhenge (talk) 21:47, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
 * The Duke page is fairly old and the official website does seem like better evidence. The Red Hat docs is better, but still I'd say the official website is stronger evidence. But at least you've given some verifiable evidence. So my outrage is lessened. While YUM looks ugly, wrong and cringeworthy to me I'm at least willing to roll over and let you do what you want. Fuse809  (contribs · email · talk · uploads) 09:49, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you sir. I hear what you're saying about "ugly, wrong, and cringeworthy" ... especially to anyone who has worked at the command line. Still, the trend in acronyms seems to be to all caps (except for some camel-case exceptions). The original developer is just seeking some consistency. Google Ngrams was no help, but my (and the developer's) survey of online content shows this software most often referred to as "YUM". I will make the proposed changes shortly. Many thanks for your feedback. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Heimhenge (talk • contribs) 22:24, 15 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Closed? So is this discussion closed? What happens next? I requested the name change at WP:RM/TR as suggested, and it's been like 7 days and the page title still hasn't changed. Never changed a page title before, so maybe I'm missing something? Heimhenge (talk) 18:55, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Hi . As there was no clear consensus, I relisted the discussion. That is, seven more days to discuss it. — usernamekiran (talk)  00:47, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't have much of an opinion as to whether it should be "yum" (file name "Yum") or "YUM" -- I lean toward "yum" but see that it could go either way. But it should not be an expansion like "Yellowdog Updater, Modified" or "Yellow dog Updater, Modified". Those are big-time violations of WP:COMMONNAME. To the average person encountering this yum, it is the Linux command yum. TJRC (talk) 04:52, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
 * yum doesn't look half bad to me as a name for this article, but to be fair I should point out that LSD is the most common name of said drug yet its article is at Lysergic acid diethylamide, so there are exceptions to the "common name" rule. Fuse809  (contribs · email · talk · uploads) 06:28, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
 * The abbreviation "LSD" is a different case, because Lysergic acid diethylamide is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for "LSD", so LSD can be made into a redirect to it. That really makes the distinction between whether "LSD" redirects to "Lysergic acid diethylamide" or "Lysergic acid diethylamide" redirects to "LSD" pretty much an academic matter. That's not applicable in this case. If you have some similar principled reason not to follow WP:COMMONNAME, please surface it here. TJRC (talk) 18:33, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
 * There is a difference between "YUM" (the acronym for) the name of the software, and "yum" the Linux command. This article is about the former. All the permutations (YUM, Yum, yum) take you to this page: Yum. Wouldn't it be better to eliminate that step and have a search for "YUM" (or "Yum" or "yum") take the reader directly to the software? A search for, say, "BASIC" takes me directly to the BASIC page. To do that for YUM we need to change the name of this page to "YUM (software)". Heimhenge (talk) 23:00, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Consensus? Does the lack of response to my previous post constitute agreement? As I pointed out, you type "basic" (in lower case) at the command line to run "BASIC" (the all-caps acronym for "Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code". I could provide many more examples. So let's do the same for YUM. Agreed? --Heimhenge (talk) 19:49, 28 November 2017 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move 13 March 2018

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: not moved to the proposed title at this time, per the discussion below. I suggest not initiating more requests to Yellowdog Updater, Modified for the time being, but a discussion to gauge consensus for Yum (software) or YUM (software) can be started at any time; this discussion was not adequate to determine consensus in favor of a move to one of those titles. Dekimasu よ! 19:22, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Yellow Dog Updater, Modified → Yellowdog Updater, Modified – The existing page title does not match the acronym if "yellow" and "dog" are two separate words. The body of the article, as well as the graphic, follows this usage with "yellowdog" as a single word. When I try to move this page the filter says it already exists and suggests I try making the request here. Apparently the filter sees the two titles as equivalent (yellow dog = yellowdog). So I'm requesting technical assistance on this page move, thanks. Full disclosure: I'm requesting this title change on behalf of the original YDL developer (Kai Staats) for whom I'm writing a bio page. We need consistent terminology for internal links. Heimhenge (talk) 19:13, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Your prior identical proposal was just declined as no consensus three months ago. See . Is it your plan to repeatedly make the same RM until it gets by?
 * Procedural aspects aside, both its current name Yellow Dog Updater, Modified and the proposed name Yellowdog Updater, Modified violate WP:COMMONNAME. The common name for this software is "YUM" or "Yum". If it is to be moved, it should be to Yum (software) or some variant of that. TJRC (talk) 20:52, 13 March 2018 (UTC)


 * I was advised by one of the editors who agreed with me to wait a few months and resubmit. This will be my final attempt at a name change. If I can't reach consensus this time you won't see any more requests. That said, we would be fine with a name change to "YUM (software)" as that would eliminate the inconsistency between the acronym and software name. Not sure if I have the authority to initiate that page move or would need an editor with higher-level access? Either way, let's see if we can get consensus for "YUM (software). Thanks. Heimhenge (talk) 16:21, 14 March 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move 21 March 2018

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: moved to Yum (software), and I've gone ahead and added the lowercase template as that seems to be the rough consensus. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:03, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Yellow Dog Updater, Modified → YUM (software) – I'm following the suggestion made by Dekimasuよ! and suggesting this new title to remove inconsistency between the acronym "YUM" and the name of the software. That name is "Yellowdog Updater, Modified" with "Yellowdog" as one word (as it is used in the body of the article). My attempt to move this page was thwarted by the fact that there is a redirect page already in place with that name. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Yum_(software)&redirect=no. We could get rid of that page with my proposed change. The redirect page uses "Yum" but we prefer "YUM". Will probably need Admin help with this, thanks. Heimhenge (talk) 01:38, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Support - no one uses the "full" version. Although I'd prefer yum (as lowercase). Andy Dingley (talk) 22:49, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Support; but would also prefer yum (software). TJRC (talk) 00:42, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
 * We would be fine with lowercase "yum (software)" for the page title. According to the page titling guidelines, starting with a lowercase letter (as in eBay) requires additional hoops to jump through on the Technical Restrictions page so we were trying to keep this simple. But if you can make that happen go for it. Either way, "Yellow Dog Updater, Modified" is simply NOT the correct name for the software. Thanks. Heimhenge (talk) 15:57, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
 * It's not a big deal. The page name would actually be "Yum (software)", but adding the template lowercase title will make it show up in the title as "yum (software)". Not much of a hoop. TJRC (talk) 21:22, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Obviously you've done this before. Thanks for explaining. And the idea of using lowercase "yum (software)" probably makes more sense since the program is run from the command line, and anyone looking for this page would probably type it that way just to get there faster. Heimhenge (talk) 17:55, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but who is "we"? Dekimasu よ! 16:57, 27 March 2018 (UTC)I ask because you have revealed possible conflicts of interest in the past, but I am uncertain whether that is an issue here. Dekimasu よ! 18:27, 27 March 2018 (UTC) Ah, I see that in November you wrote about changes that "the original developer requested," so that is presumably the "we" you refer to here. Since you have revealed this connection and the other editors here are supporting your request, there shouldn't be an issue. Dekimasu よ! 18:30, 27 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Support In my experience, it's always referred to as yum, and the full name borders on trivia. The command-line command is lowercase (by necessity), but refs   often use YUM in documentation. power~enwiki ( π,  ν ) 22:31, 27 March 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

WP:RSN Discussion of a source cited in this article
is here FYI. -- Yae4 (talk) 18:36, 13 June 2023 (UTC)