Poldek is a console interface for RPM that comes with complete functionalities. It provides a user-friendly way to manage RPM packages.
One of the main advantages of Poldek is its relatively fast dependency processing. Unlike rpmlib-based tools, Poldek handles package dependencies, conflicts, and settings in order and without utilizing rpmlib, which makes the program significantly faster and less memory-intensive. Another benefit is "smart" installation, whereby before the installation of big packages, the tool breaks them into smaller manageable groups, each containing 2 to 10 items. By doing so, Poldek ensures that an unsuccessful installation of one of the groups does not affect other groups.
Poldek comes with an interactive mode that allows the user to browse, search, download, install/upgrade, and deinstall packages. Compared to batch mode, interactive mode uses a readline interface with command line auto-completion and history. This feature is similar in concept to the shell mode of Perl's CPAN module.
Poldek requires only 8-12 MB of memory during installation from scratch, thanks to its separate download and installation of packages. Additionally, Poldek offers a quick package set verification feature, useful for distribution maintainers, as well as a package set division option to minimize disk changes when installing on removable media such as CDROM or ZIP.
Poldek also supports "patches" of package index, which saves users time and bandwidth. Incremental indexes create a patch that users can download and update their local index with information of changes only. The program can also be run by ordinary users, with package installation done via sudo.
The latest release of Poldek introduces several new features and significant changes, including a new native package repository index format, support for Yum and XML Metadata repositories, improved support for APT-RPM indexes, proper package ordering before uninstallation, clearer configuration syntax, better dependency resolver, and many more. Therefore, Poldek is highly recommended for RPM package management.
Version 0.20: N/A