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Add to SafariWhen comparing YUM vs XBPS (X Binary Package System), the Slant community recommends XBPS (X Binary Package System) for most people. In the question“What are the best Linux package managers?” XBPS (X Binary Package System) is ranked 4th while YUM is ranked 15th.
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Avoids dependency hell
All the metadata for installed software is stored into a XML file. This is used to avoid conflicting dependencies among packages. What's more, YUM also automatically syncs remote metadata to the local client in order to avoid failures if a command is not run at the correct interval.
Pro Simple syntax
Pro Binary delta for faster transfer times
Yum supports Delta RPMs which allow transmitting only the parts of the package that have changed.
Pro Is/was the industry standard
YUM is still widely used in corporate environments.
Pro Provides pre and post install sanity checks
What might be thought of a standard feature, isn't. Thankfully RPM provides both a transaction test and a post install verification to make sure everything installs neatly.
Pro Supports multiple verification methods
Supports verification with GPG and MD5.
Pro Clean and easy to understand
Pro Supports multiple compression methods
Supports gzip, bzip2, lzma, or xz compression.
Pro Allows for complex dependency definitions
Alongside allowing dependency on a certain package, it allows depending on a library, versioned symbol, or a GAC'd Mono assembly.
Pro Extremely fast
Pro Can detect incompatibilities
XBPS can detect incompatible shared libraries or dependencies and gives you options before installing.
Pro Can install binaries or build from source
When installing software you can choose to install binaries or build it from source (natively or cross-compiled).
Pro Lots of features
XBPS can not only be used for installing/removing packages, but it can query for package info (such as version, dependencies, size etc), reconfigure packages, report and fix issues by modifying the package database, search for alternatives, manage local repositories and various other useful tools.
Pro Allows partial updates
Pro Written from scratch
Cons
Con Can be very slow to download headers if not on broadband
Yum can be much slower than other package managers if the internet speed is not at least average to high.
Con Slow (and might be fragile) dependency resolution
YUM dependency resolution is very slow. In addition to it, the people often experiencing very hard dependencies (it might be not a YUM problem).
Con Does fsync often
Like its successor, DNF, YUM does fsync too often. The result is poor YUM and system performance while YUM does its work.
Con Very slow overall
YUM is very slow - beginning with relatively slow startup, extremely slow default plugins, slow dependency resolution, and ending with slow installation of packages.
Con Poor design
YUM is written in Python 2 and people often blaming the quality of YUM's code.
Con Not just one command to run
It's not a very big drawback, just not as convenient as one command with multiple options to remove and search for apps.
Con Unable to create packages under a non-xbps distribution
Makes maintaining packages a hassle.
