DNF and Hawkey, the next Generation Yum!

The YellowDog (Yum) package manager for Fedora will soon have an successor marked as the next Generation Yum using hawkey/libsolv (maintain by SUSE) for backend.

DNF a Yum fork, promises better performance, easier bindings to other languages other than Python (Yum) and a clear package manager API. This will benefit PackageKit and therefore Gnome Software, at least in a Fedora installation. 

dnf

DNF has no relevant meaning, meant as a project name only. Since DNF is a tech preview in Fedora 18 the Python module names can not be ‘yum.*’ as that would clash with yum itself. Note that the API version of hawkey in Fedora 18 will not be final one, it will more be to demonstrate the concepts of the library.

For Fedora 18 this is mainly meant as a preview. The package can be installed along yum so user’s workflow is not disturbed when DNF malfunctions.

Fedora preferred to fork Yum instead of adopt zif (a package manager that was designed to replace Yum) or zypp (a software management lib that package manager of SUSE zypper uses) because:

• dnf looks for a middle ground between a sane API and some backwards compatibility.
• dnf and hawkey are first steps toward using the same resolver accross the entire stack.
• Libsolv is a well tested and proven code base, currently the most sophisticated and optimized dependency solving implementation.

using dnf

Although users will be advised against using DNF on critical production machines, you can use it in your home box. After all, I don’t think that a production machine runs Fedora 18 alpha :)

sudo yum install dnf

Then you can use dnf similar to yum

sudo dnf update

dnf will benefit Gnome Software probably in Fedora 19

dnf info:

Currently following commands are supported:

clean          Remove cached data
downgrade      downgrade a package
erase          Remove a package or packages from your system
help           Display a helpful usage message
history        Display, or use, the transaction history
info           Display details about a package or group of packages
install        Install a package or packages on your system
list           List a package or groups of packages
makecache      Generate the metadata cache
provides       Find what package provides the given value
repolist       Display the configured software repositories
search         Search package details for the given string
update         Update a package or packages on your system

my installed package:

Name        : dnf
Arch        : noarch
Epoch       : 0
Version     : 0.2.14
Release     : 2.git4831982.fc18
Size        : 0.0  
Repo        : @System
Buildtime   : Wed Oct 17 13:27:55 2012
Install time: Thu Oct 18 03:40:11 2012
Summary     : Package manager forked from Yum, using libsolv as a dependency
            : resolver
URL         : https://github.com/akozumpl/dnf
License     : GPLv2+ and GPLv2 and GPL
Description : Package manager forked from Yum, using libsolv as a dependency
            : resolver.

Dnf uses your current yum repos and its configuration is stored under:

/etc/dnf/dnf.conf

Learn more about DNF [at] DNF Fedora Wiki and see all the features in Fedora 18 [at] Fedora 18 Schedule