On Mon, 2002-12-09 at 02:09, Nick Phillips wrote: > On Monday, December 9, 2002, at 12:03 pm, Scott James Remnant wrote: > > > I disagree that this is needed, not for any of the usual reasons, but > > for the simple reason that this functionality already exists. > > In part; it's not visible to the user, and it's not possible for a > package to specify that it depends on a version of a package from a > particular release/distribution/origin. > It's entirely visible to the user! When all else fails, apt-cache policy tells you everything you might want in your preferences file. > > The namespace of an apt repository is its URL, and any information > > available in a "Release" file at that URL. > > Which is inadequate; how do you tell whether the following lines access > the same > distribution? > > deb http://debian.lemon-computing.com/debian/ stable main contrib > non-free > deb http://debian.otago.ac.nz/debian/ stable main contrib non-free > A "Release" file is present for both distributions, in which the following line exists: Origin: Debian Then you can put something like: Pin: release o=Debian in your preferences file to refer to it. If Origin were "Ximian" for example, you'd put this instead: Pin: release o=Ximian > > I imagine the problem you had was that the system had all the Ximian > > GNOME debs installed, and you wanted to use those from Debian instead. > > That could have been easily solved by putting the following in > > /etc/apt/preferences: > > Package: * > > Pin: release o=Debian > > Pin-Priority: 1000 > > > > Package: * > > Pin: origin ftp.ximian.com > > Pin-Priority: -1 > > > > In effect, "Debian packages can force a downgrade of anything, do not > > consider Ximian packages for installation at all" > > This is great, but it doesn't enable *packages* to specify what they > need. Which is where the logic needs to be, if we really want to avoid > problems. > Why? I would say that this is the last thing you want to do? A package shouldn't care that Ximian's version of libgal is installed, just that "libgal" is installed - I (as the user) should then be able to choose which package I install. Scott -- Scott James Remnant Have you ever, ever felt like this? Had strange http://netsplit.com/ things happen? Are you going round the twist?
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