It can be quite discouraging to type “yum update” and have
yum simply go off forever. Among other things, one must wait a great
long time to distinguish this behavior from yum’s normal mode of
operation. Other times, it comes back very quickly with a message
saying, for all practical purposes, “RPM crashed, you lose,
sorry.”

via LWN.net (subscription
required)

Jonathan Corbet normally manages to amuse me on a weekly basis, but
this time he’s outdone himself. Consider my LWN.net subcription renewed
for another year.

Update: I;ve been convinced to include a subscriber
link to the article for those without LWN.net subscriptions. http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/210373/8badbe4f9c463fb8/