As part of the mistaken debug/assert 8.4.4 RPM build, I started looking
at the user experience of downloading these packages, and found the
experience to be very poor.
From our download page, http://www.postgresql.org/download/linux#yum, I
clicked on "PostgreSQL Yum repository".
That points to a moved link that tells you to go to:
https://public.commandprompt.com/projects/pgcore/wiki
On that page, under "Configure Yum", you are supposed to click on "1.
Yum", which didn't seem obvious to me.
Then, once there, you see:
Letter PPackages beginning with letter "P". * pgdg-centos - PostgreSQL 9.0.X PGDG RPMs for CentOS - Yum Repository
Configuration * pgdg-fedora - PostgreSQL 9.0.X PGDG RPMs for Fedora - Yum Repository Configuration * pgdg-redhat -
PostgreSQL9.0.X PGDG RPMs for RHEL - Yum Repository Configuration
What kind of title is "Letter P"? And all these downloads are marked as
9.0.X.
Then, once you click on one, it seems fine, though has improved since
yesterday after I complained to Josh Drake about a directory listing
that was confusing.
Back on the Yum download page there is a "Direct Download" section,
which points to:
https://public.commandprompt.com/projects/pgcore/wiki/Direct_download
which shows:
8.4 - New release. Test before you upgrade.
Which obviously is inaccurate because 8.4 has been out for many months now.
The bottom line is that almost every page shows a laziness and
sloppiness that makes the community look bad. Contrast this with
Devrim's RPM repository, which is easy to understand:
http://yum.pgrpms.org/
Are there any other off-site download experiences as bad as the Yum one
we link to now?
-- Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> http://momjian.us EnterpriseDB
http://enterprisedb.com
+ None of us is going to be here forever. +