Fedora apt and yum repositories

2006-04-07 update:

Please visit the Fedora Helper page for information on easily installing "forbidden items," such as MP3 support, DVD support, Win32codecs, Java JRE, etc.

Older notes

There are several third-party apt and yum repositories for Fedora that provide additional software not provided with Fedora Core, such as support for playing DVDs and MP3 files. Perhaps the most important consideration when choosing third-party repositories is ensuring that packages do not conflict between repositories.

Personally, I use the fedora.us repository in conjunction with the rpm.livna.org repository. fedora.us provides hundreds of additional packages, and rpm.livna.org provides DVD and MP3 support, along with other packages such as NVIDIA driver RPMs.

The main alternative to using fedora.us/rpm.livna.org is to use third-party repositories such as FreshRPMS, DAG, NewRPMS, ATrpms, and Dries. These other third-party repositories should be compatible with each other, but may not be compatible with fedora.us/rpm.livna.org; "mixing and matching" these groups of third-party repositories could introduce package conflicts that are difficult to fix.

Although the FreshRPMS/DAG/NewRPMS/ATrpms/Dries repositores have a much larger selection of packages, I am more comfortable with the quality-control of the fedora.us/rpm.livna.org repositories. You may wish to try both to see which group of third-party repositories you prefer.

If you choose to add the FreshRPMS/DAG/NewRPMS/ATrpms/Dries repositories, ATrpms lists additional RPM repositories that may be added without introducing package conflicts, and The Red Hat/Fedora authoritative packager list lists which of these repositories is authoritative for a given package.

Instructions on adding the fedora.us repository are available at the Fedora HOWTO page. Instructions on adding the rpm.livna.org repository are available here. Instructions on adding the FreshRPMS/DAG/NewRPMS/ATrpms/Dries repositories are available at their respective sites.

Older notes on adding FreshRPMS/DAG/NewRPMS/ATrpms/Dries repositories to apt and yum for Fedora Core 1 are available below.

Adding third-party repositories to apt and yum configuration files

The following instructions are for Fedora Core 1.

1. Download and install the apt and yum packages from freshrpms.net. Alternatively, you may install the yum.conf and sources.list files from freshrpms.net if you already have apt and yum installed.

http://freshrpms.net/packages/builds/yum/yum-fd.conf (save this as /etc/yum.conf)
http://freshrpms.net/packages/builds/apt/sources.list.i386 (save this as /etc/apt/sources.list)

2. Add third-party repositories to yum and apt configuration files.

/etc/yum.conf additional entries:

[DAG]
name=Dag APT Repository
baseurl=http://apt.sw.be/redhat/fc$releasever/en/$basearch/dag

[NewRPMS]
name=Fedora Core 1 NewRPMS.sunsite.dk
baseurl=http://newrpms.sunsite.dk/apt/redhat/en/i386/fc1

[ATrpms]
name=Fedora Core 1 ATrpms testing
baseurl=http://apt.physik.fu-berlin.de/fedora/1/en/i386/at-testing

[Dries]
name=Extra Fedora rpms dries - $releasever - $basearch
baseurl=http://dries.studentenweb.org/yum/fedora/linux/$releasever/$basearch/dries

/etc/apt/sources.list additional entries:

# DAG
rpm http://apt.sw.be redhat/fc1/en/i386 dag

# NewRPMS
rpm http://newrpms.sunsite.dk/apt/ redhat/en/i386/fc1 newrpms
#rpm-src http://newrpms.sunsite.dk/apt/ redhat/en/i386/fc1 newrpms

# ATrpms
rpm http://apt.physik.fu-berlin.de fedora/1/en/i386 at-stable
#rpm-src http://apt.physik.fu-berlin.de fedora/1/en/i386 at-stable

# Dries
rpm http://dries.studentenweb.org apt/fedora/fc1/i386 dries
#rpm-src http://dries.studentenweb.org apt/fedora/fc1/i386 dries

3. Update the package lists.
apt-get update
yum update (this step will take a while as yum downloads a header file for each new package)

The 5 third-party repositories listed above are now available with yum and apt.

New users may wish to install the excellent GUI front-end to apt named synaptic with the following command:
yum -y install synaptic
-- or --
apt-get -y install synaptic

If you would like to automatically update your system nightly with the latest package updates, enable the yum service:
/sbin/chkconfig --add yum
/sbin/service yum start

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