Prefer dnf-3 instead of dnf-5 being the default package manager

[rivenirvana]

With koji-tool v1.1 and commit bdd3265 specifically, the WIP dnf-5 is now identified and preferred over dnf-3 if it is installed in the system as the package manager to be used.

However, I'd like to propose the opposite instead for now and prefer dnf-3 in the meantime, for the following reasons:

• FESCo has deferred the plan to supersede dnf-3 with dnf-5 until at the very least Fedora 41 which is slated for late 2024. This FESCo ticket outlines their various reasons for delay, and states as much that dnf-5 is still not ready to replace current dnf. Phoronix article
• Aside from the described reasons in the ticket, dnf-5 also does not yet seem to interact with and update the package completion cache when completing transactions, which makes it confusing for me in my personal use-case (I use dnf-remove and the completion cache to quickly check for installed packages)
• Lastly, despite the delay, I still have both dnf-3 and dnf-5 (from the COPR) installed on my system. But I still mostly use dnf-3 for package transactions and only test dnf-5 changes when they get updated. dnf-5 is also not available in current non-Rawhide Fedora releases, anyway.

[juhp]

Hi, thanks for the report. Sorry for the disruption.

At least once dnf5 is no longer installed by default it should fix the issue for most general users. For now you can use --dnf3 to avoid dnf5 if it is installed, but you might be right (this news took me a little by surprise), so I could perhaps change to defaulting to dnf-3. Though I rather like the speed of dnf5 and it mostly works well for me actually now, with a few wrinkles, so I feel some people may want to install dnf5 and continue to use it as their "daily driver": for such users preferring dnf5 makes sense though IMHO - people who only want to test dnf5 should probably do so in a container/toolbox or vm, or other test environment.

Otherwise a config option could be in order - until now I have largely avoided static config in most of my tools.

[juhp]

(For your 2nd bullet, why not just use rpm -q (rpmquery) to check installed packages, I think it is also faster)

Note that dnf5 is only chosen if it is installed (at least that is the intention) - if that is not the case then it is a bug. :-)

[juhp]

One more idea: dunno if there is some way to detect if dnf5 is in active use: eg update-to-date cache etc. That could be used a criteria for choosing dnf5.

[rivenirvana]

Thanks for the quick response. After thinking about it a bit more and considering your replies, I have decided to retract my proposal and conclude that this as a non-issue personally. You are right in that:

• users on stable releases will not have to experience this as dnf5 will not be part of the official repositories anyway
• Using rpm -q is simpler and shorter to use (albeit a bit slow on tab completion) and I should just try to adapt to this as the new habit instead
• users should use a container/toolbox if they want to test out WIP software like dnf5

Besides that, koji-tool only uses a small subset of features from dnf5 that already works well and could be considered feature complete or having feature parity with dnf3. Thus, I am marking this as a non-issue, and will be deferring to you for any decisions on improvements/changes in the future. Thanks again for this awesome tool!

[juhp]

Okay, thank you - glad you like koji-tool :-)

Anyway I am still considering your suggestion - let's see how dnf5 progress settles, after F39 branching etc.