FC4: problems after an update. SUSE 9.3 problems after YOU update: SUGGESTION.

From: AnonymousFC3 (ano_at_fc3.net)
Date: 07/15/05 

Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2005 12:36:22 -0700

Hello:
  I have posted this on REdhat & SUSe because I am using both.

... and both have similar problems, this is no surprise:
Lately after a "yum update"m on FC4 I am experiencing annoying, but not
destructive)problems with KDE: "kwallet" does not properly work anymore,
and is asking me password it should not...

With SUSE 9.3 an YOU update brought my network system to a non funtionning
state.

It should be no suprise there: as well as testing has been done, new
releases of software introduce bugs....
So my issue here, would be to be able to undo a Linux "online upate" in
order to bring the system back to the previously known working state.

Note that Microsoft has been doing this for a while with their "services
packs", )maybe they still do it?): Save the basic system components on a
separate directory tree, to be able to undo the update, if anything "turns
sour".
Most updates rarely use more that a few hundreds megabytes (at most), and
the cost of a gigabyte of storage being at 50 cents, I am willing to
"invest" into a bit more storage for this.

So my suggestion is quite crude and simple:
For each update, save all the critical system files (probably as the
previous level of RPMS, Red Hat developper in their wisdom allow to
recreate an rpm packaged from the files).
If everything is "hunky dory", it is easy for the user to delete this then
unnecessary files.
Else restoring the system in its previously working state, would be a
breeze... even if the network connection is dead.

Of course, I would much prefer a common Linux interface for most of the
distros, command line being OK for me (rarely used!.
But of course later integration in the very good "kcontrol" (or it Gnome
equivalent) as a GUI should not be too hard...

This implies that the on line update, have a common interface wchih is in a
way already there: yum is used (in he background by YOU, up2date, and
probably most RPM's based systems and more).

So I would suggest to integrate this functionallity (saving undo data,
retoring from) into YUM....
What do you think?
  AFC4

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