Apt told me that it depends on a specific file which isn’t provided by any package in the repository. After some investigation I noticed that the rpm WAS available in the repository, and that yum correctly found that package.

The problem was that the specific file needed by the package was a symlink provided by the other package. The symlink file is known by the rpm (rpm -ql /path/to/file gives the rpm) but isn’t know by apt.

Instead of running genbasedir with the location of the repository as only argument, add the –bloat argument.

genbasedir --bloat /path/to/repository

This will solve the problem!

I noticed this problem during the installation of redhat-lsb on a very minimal CentOS5 system. redhat-lsb requires 2 files (which are symlinks), these files are provided by… redhat-lsb itselve…

If you didn’t use the –bloat argument the redhat-lsb package couldn’t be installed with apt, it could be installed with yum or rpm.

As one of my desktops was still running Fedora 7 it was time to upgrade to the current stable Fedora, Fedora 8.

On the Fedora wiki you can find a list of instructions to upgrade your machine using yum. It will list the general actions but also the execptions for each upgrade.
You can find these instructions here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/YumUpgradeFaq

The upgrade went very smooth, but isn’t recommended for non-technical users as it all happens on the command line.
For those non-technical users a graphical user interface which guides you through the complete process would be very handy (Ubuntu has it already, don’t know if it is available in Fedora 8/9).
I prefer the upgrade with yum as I want to know what my machine is doing.