5 thoughts on - Missing Packages In CentOS8 Mirrors Or Do I Miss Something?

• So what was shipped in CentOS-8 matches what was shipped in RHEL-8. Red Hat wanted to cut down the number of packages it would offer different levels of support for so while packages are built they might be shuffled into either BaseOS (strong support long lifetime), AppStream (strong support short lifetime), Code Read Builder (no support called PowerTools because Code Ready is a product line), and not shipped.

  so so docbook-dtds is in AppStream docbook-utils is in PowerTools

  and docbook-utils-pdf is not shipped.

  perl-tk is in PowerTools btrfs is in the NotShipped

  —
  Stephen J Smoogen.

• Thanks a lot for this clear explanation.

  Now a few more questions:

  – Is there an official/unofficial repo for packages that are built by koji but are not “shipped” ?

  – Any idea why docbook-utils is shipped while docbook-utils-pdf is not? It is the same source package. This is wired and makes this difficult for alternative repo like epel or elrepo to add the missing bits and pieces like docbook-utils-pdf… If its obsolete, do you know any replacement that would let me convert my sgml doc (systemimager) to a more modern (still generic format) that has converters to man and html formats at least? (and pdf also)

  -Is there a place where I could read about all dropped packages? I’ve searched in redhat changelog and CentOS and all I could find is a few packages dropped like NIS related or so.

  Cheers,

  PS: I’ve found btrfs-progs in elrepo-testing, so I suppose it’ll end soon in elrepo

  Olivier.

  Le 26/09/2019 14:11, « CentOS au nom de Stephen John Smoogen » a écrit :

  >
  > Hi,
  >
  > I need to port OSCAR Cluster and SystemImager softwares to CentOS8, but I miss a lot of package that seems to be built for CentOS-8.
  > For example, I cant find docbook-utils and docbook-utls-pdf while I see them here: https://koji.mbox.CentOS.org/koji/buildinfo?buildID=651
  >

  So what was shipped in CentOS-8 matches what was shipped in RHEL-8.
  Red Hat wanted to cut down the number of packages it would offer
  different levels of support for so while packages are built they might
  be shuffled into either BaseOS (strong support long lifetime),
  AppStream (strong support short lifetime), Code Read Builder (no
  support called PowerTools because Code Ready is a product line), and
  not shipped.

  so so docbook-dtds is in AppStream
  docbook-utils is in PowerTools

  and docbook-utils-pdf is not shipped.

  > I’ve installed epel-release and elrepo-release and CentOS-release-stream.
  >
  > Do I miss something or is it a matter of time due to mirro syncs?
  >
  > I misse btrfs packages, perl-Tk packages, docbook packages and many more that I can find on https://koji.mbox.CentOS.org/koji/builds
  >

  perl-tk is in PowerTools
  btrfs is in the NotShipped

  > Where am I wrong?
  >
  > PS: I’m running CentOS-8 in docker (roboxes/CentOS8 wainting for official CentOS:8 container). (I think that my issue is not related to the container though as I can’t find packages on mirror repos.
  >
  >

• For those who come across this thread, I’ve found the exact list of changed and dropped package between rhel:7 and rhel:8:

  https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_enterprise_linux/8/html-single/considerations_in_adopting_rhel_8/index#package-replacements_changes-to-packages

  Too bad that the “note” column is empty in the dropped package table. NO word about reason or possible alternatives. Also too bad that those drops were not advertised before release so developers could think about migrating there code. That would have helped me a lot if I had knew that docbook-utils-pdf would be dropped….I would have searched for an alternative long ago.

  Olivier.

  Le 26/09/2019 16:02, « CentOS au nom de LAHAYE Olivier » a écrit :

  […]
  -Is there a place where I could read about all dropped packages? I’ve searched in redhat changelog and CentOS and all I could find is a few packages dropped like NIS related or so.

  […]

• Also too bad that those drops were not advertised before release so developers could think about migrating there code.

  Thankfully 7 is supported for another 4 years or so.

• It looks like that package does a combination of xsltproc + FOP. On EL7, you can get both with:

  $ sudo yum install fop libxslt

  I don’t have an 8 box here to check, but I fully expect that xsltproc is in 8, being a necessary component of GNOME. It isn’t on your list of removed packages.

  FOP is on that list, but it isn’t really necessary to have an RPM for it, since it’s a Java package: just get the distro, unpack it somewhere. and put its “fop” wrapper script in the PATH:

  https://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/

  Alternately, you could rebuild Fedora’s package on CentOS 8:

  https://apps.fedoraproject.org/packages/fop

  I expect this difference means this package will move to EPEL eventually, once someone gets around to it. EPEL 8 looks rather thin compared to EPEL 7 at the moment.

  You might find my documentation on multi-step DocBook processing helpful:

  https://tangentsoft.com/mysqlpp/dir?name=doc/userman&ci=trunk

  The tutorial on that page plus the xsltproc and fo2pdf calls in the Makefile linked to that page plus the fo2pdf script also linked on that page should amount to a complete replacement for your existing db2pdf method.

  As to why Red Hat abandoned this particular package, I’d guess that this sort of multi-step processing chain is more common, being more powerful. For one thing, it gets you to HTML as well as to PDF. For another, use of XML technologies orthogonal to DocBook like XIncludes often require going the step-by-step processing route.

  Also, RHEL8 is purposely paring down much of what goes into core, pushing the rest off into Software Collections, EPEL, etc. That was a major point of the original announcement back in December (?) of last year.