Re: Mirrors et al.
On Tue, 30 Apr 1996, Craig Sanders wrote:
Hi Craig,
> Actually, i was thinking about the whole package system rather than just
> the dpkg program. yes, i agree here too...dpkg is great - it does it's
> job and does it well. dselect's UI leaves a lot to be desired.
That's true while I think IMHO the dpkg tool could be anhanced the way
it refuses to update a package when a required one is missing.
Now my idea :
=============
dpkg should check the depandancies an required fields as it does already
but additionally should offer a selection for the packages required to
set up the updated package correctly. It should automatically go thru
this cycle until all required packages are updated and installed in the
correct order.
> this is the same situation as if someone downloaded the new kernel from
> tsx-11 or sunsite or somewhere, compiled it and installed it only to find
> that they now need new procps, new networking utils, new init, etc.
Yup, but that's what happened to me with the new sysVinit package. I had
to update even libc5-dev which required libc5 etc...
> it's a problem, and i don't see any easy way around it. in fact, i
> don't think it can be automated 100%...at some point, user intelligence
> and knowledge will always be required. My rule number 1 of computing:
> if you don't know what you're doing, go slowly and carefully until
> you learn what you need to know. Keeping my knowledge up-to-date and
> relevant is, IMO, one of my primary duties as a sysadmin.
That's absolutely correct. We as administrators have the knowledge but
think of all the "normal" users and Linux/Debian beginners.
> how would dpkg handle that situation? would it allow the install if and
> only if both packages were available and selected for installation? or
> would it just refuse to do anything?
That's what I would vote for.
Greetimgs,
Steffen
-----
Steffen R.Mueller __ ___ _ _ email: steffen@xlink.net
NTG Netzwerk und Telematic GmbH \ \/ / (_)_ __ | | __ fax : +49 721 9652 210
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