Well, as we do have quite a few custom built RPM’s, I was searching for a new solution to manage the repo(s). Currently I do have a single repository per distribution.
One thing one needs to know about createrepo (from createrepo), it doesn’t support this type of thing in the first place. So I had to come up with another way of doing it. First, I created a proper layout (much like the Debian Official Repository layout):
- dists/
- sle9/ (contains the repodata for SLES 9)
- sle10/ (contains the repodata for SLES 10)
- esx35/ (contains the repodata for VMware ESX 3.5)
- i586/
- noarch/
- ppc64/
- src/
- x86_64/
As you can see, this is gonna get tricky in regards to managing the RPMS in a single place, while keeping the distributions apart.
So I went ahead, rewrote the script that perviously managed our two repositories for SLES 9/10. The limitation I pointed out above (keeping the RPMS in a single place), is easily overcome by using bind-mounts (sure it looks messy).
Now the only problem I’m still facing is that createrepo isn’t even looking at the excludes when it’s called by the script. But if I pass the raw command line the script is calling on a simple shell, it works like a charm .. So I don’t have the slightest clue right now, why in gods name it ain’t working … 
Life RPM, SLES10, SLES9, Work
Well, after a loooong time of trying to get the modules and all the other stuff (read: init-script for the guest daemon and modules) working, I think I’m about there.
I finally fixed a long-standing issue, with the postinst/prerm scripts, and the tools should be about ready. Gonna try and send it Daniel Baumann’s way (that is the Debian Maintainer), for proper inclusion into Lenny.
I (successfully) tried splitting the Xorg parts from the “normal” open-vm-tools, as I usually don’t want Xorg installed on *any* of my virtual machines. Thus leaving me with open-vm-tools, open-vm-modules and open-vm-toolbox (and open-vm-source) as a list of packages one could install.
Life Debian, VMware Infrastructure
So Petteri came up with a nifty python script (local), which in return spit out this. Which generated a rather complete list (local), that looks like this:
700: perl
569: maintainer-needed
128: media-video
126: xemacs
47: sound
32: ha-cluster
32: crypto
19: desktop-misc
16: netmon
15: forensics
13: web-apps
10: pam-bugs
8: vserver-devs
8: mips
8: embedded
8: app-backup
8: apache-bugs
8: alsa-bugs
7: net-im
7: kde
6: tcltk
6: media-tv
6: dev-embedded
5: voip
5: theology
5: samba
5: net-p2p
5: freedesktop-bugs
4: sparc
4: java
4: graphics
2: net-mail
2: ldap-bugs
2: kernel
2: fonts
2: cpp
1: x11
1: wxwidgets
1: www-servers
1: tex
1: shell-tools
1: sgml
1: sci
1: qmail-bugs
1: python
1: proaudio
1: media-optical
1: kerberos
1: hp-cluster
1: amd64
Gentoo herds, QA