Re: Update was Re: Unsatisfied depends in slink main

[Dale Scheetz <dwarf@polaris.net>]

On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Jason Gunthorpe wrote:

> 
> On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Dale Scheetz wrote:
> 
> > I should have made it clear that my intent was to find any and all
> > references, that could not be satisfied in the supplied set of packages.
> > As the Packages file is the "weak link" in the distribution method, I
> > decided to interrogate the actual packages in the given archive and parse
> > their control files.
> 
> Of course this is not at all true, the package files are generated
> directly from the .deb files daily they are never wrong, if they were then
> our tools would stop working!

While what you say is in principle true, in practice it doesn't always
work out that way. My experience has been that many problems experienced
by our users, and much of the fault on "broken" CDs have been the result
of out-of-sync Packages files. In my most recent personal case, that
broken sync was caused by a broken mirror configuration WRT symlinks. The
result was a package in the Packages file but not in the archives. This
can happen through a chain of mirrors in several ways. (Yes, I know that
there are safeguards to help, but they are not always used)

For myself, I draw through such a narrow straw that it may take days to
complete a pass. I know, under these circumstances that I must repeat the
mirror until a pass can occure in shorter timeframes. I also know that
there are ways to unsync if you have a bigger straw. It's only a matter of
timing.

Several of the CDs that have been produced by vendors with "unspectacular"
results have been partialy the result of "broken" Packages files. I have
always considered this to be a weak link in the installation process. I
know that when I build Packages files using dpkg-scanpackages, that it can
take a long time, and that such "reconstruction" within and FTP
install/upgrade is difficult without retrieving the archive, but when the
package installation tools can't recover the Packages file, a broken CD is
unrecoverable trash. Being able to run against an arbitrary archive is
going to become more and more necessary as the distribution becomes
larger.

Thanks,

Dwarf
--
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aka   Dale Scheetz                   Phone:   1 (850) 656-9769
      Flexible Software              11000 McCrackin Road
      e-mail:  dwarf@polaris.net     Tallahassee, FL  32308

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