Fedora Easy Karma

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Fedora Easy Karma

The purpose of Fedora Easy Karma

fedora-easy-karma is a console application that makes it easier to submit feedback for proposed updates in a Fedora or EPEL testing repository, all from your command line.

It can automatically recognize any testing package that you have installed (it overrides the stable version), it gives you various pieces of information on the package, including other users’ comments, and it lets you easily comment and provide karma (evaluation) to that package. For more details on karma, check the Understanding package karma section.

How to enable testing packages on your system

In order to use Fedora Easy Karma, it is important that you have enabled testing packages (testing updates) on your system. Testing packages are newer version of applications, programs, or libraries, and they will eventually become a part of stable updates to the system.

By default, testing packages are not enabled on the system (except for Beta versions), so if you want to use them, you need to enable them explicitely. There are two ways to bring testing packages onto your system:

Temporarily enabling the testing repository

You can temporarily enable the testing repository while you run the dnf update command. With this approach, you will only download and install new testing updates when you decide for it.

To make DNF installing testing updates, use

$ sudo dnf update --enablerepo=updates-testing --best

Note that when you do not use the --enablerepo argument in the future, DNF will not update the packages to their latest testing versions and your system could get into a situation when you will not have installed the newest testing packages, but you will not have installed the stable packages either, so you could be experiencing issues, especially if the particular versions of the packages you have installed were problematic.

To reset your system to the stable version of the packages, use

$ sudo dnf distro-sync

Persistently enabling the testing repository

You can persistently enable the testing repository and always update to the newest testing packages. When you enable them, you will be getting these new updates anytime you will use the dnf update command until you disable them again. With this approach, your Fedora will a step ahead of the stable Fedora, so you might experience issues with certain applications or packages. However, this is what testing is about, isn’t it?

To persistently enable the testing repository, use

$ sudo dnf config-manager setopt "updates-testing.enabled=1"

To disable the testing repositories, use the same command, but replace enabled=1 with enabled=0. Also, it could be wise to distro sync your system afterwards.

Alternatively, you can use your package manager, such as Gnome Software, KDE Discover, or DNFdragora to enable or disable repositories.

Understanding package karma

Every new updated package arrives in a testing repository where it needs to spend some time (usually upto 14 days) before it can be moved into the stable repository. While being there, users can comment on the package and provide evaluation to it, the so called karma.

The provided karma can be positive, neutral, or negative based on the user experience and testing of that particular package. While neutral karma does not affect the life of the package in the testing repository, both positive and negative karma does.

If a package gets a pre-defined number of positive karma (that depends on the packager’s decision), it will be made ready for a push into the stable repository and it does not have to wait out the grace period. On the other hand, when a package receives negative karma, the automated push is blocked and the packager either pushes the package manually, or they fix the problems and make a new build of the package and the process starts anew.

Using Fedora Easy Karma

Installing and running FEK

Fedora Easy Karma is not installed on the system by default, so you need to install it first. To do so, execute

$ sudo dnf install fedora-easy-karma

When you have installed the application, you can run it from the console using

$ fedora-easy-karma

The application will show you information about the packages, users’ comments related to it, and it will let you comment and provide karma. If you do not wish to comment and provide karma for this particular package, you can skip to a next package or you can ignore that package and move to the next one, until all the packages have been provided karma, skipped or ignored.

When you skip the package, Fedora Easy Karma will ask about it next time you run it. If you ignore the package, Fedora Easy Karma will not ask you about it any longer until a newer version of that package is found on your system.

Note that in order to use Fedora Easy Karma, you need to have a FAS account. If you do not have, create the account at Fedora Accounts.

Optional arguments

Using optional arguments, you can alter the default way Fedora Easy Karma behaves. Note, that the following list only shows the most often used arguments. For a complete list, use --help argument.

Argument	Meaning
--help	Shows the help message.
--datadir=DATADIR	Changes the location of the configuration directory. By default it is placed in ~/.config/fedora-easy-karma
--default-comment=COMMENT	Use this value as a default comment for each shown package.
--default-karma=KARMA	Use this value as a default karma for each shown package.
--no-color	Do not use color output. By default, some fields use color for better orientation, however they might not be well readable with some terminal palettes, and it might be necessary to switch them off.
--installed-max-days=DAYS	Only include packages installed withing the last DAYS days.
--installed-min-days=DAYS	Only include packages installed at least for DAYS days.
--pages	Clear the terminal between packages so that only that particular package is shown at the terminal screen. This can help to increase readability of the output.
--retries=RETRIES	How many times to retry to submit the comment if it fails.
--skip-bodhi-comments	Disable comments provided by the Bodhi system. This increases the readability of the comments section significantly.
--wrap-width=WIDTH	The length of the line after which the text will wrap. The default value is 80.

Troubleshooting

If you experience problems with Fedora Easy Karma, please consider reporting an issue at the project’s source page.