On Tue, Jan 15, 2002 at 08:33:16PM +0100, Frank Murphy wrote:
> On Monday 14 January 2002 01:57 am, Daniel Stone wrote:
> > On Mon, Jan 14, 2002 at 12:51:34AM +0000, John Gay wrote:
> > > but I know of no cleaner way to install these. I thought the
> > > whole reason for meta-packages like kde was to allow a simple way
> > > to update a large group of related packages. Has the kde
> > > meta-package been overlooked or have I missed the point
> > > completely?
> >
> > The whole point of the kde{,-extras,etc} metapackages was to allow
> > you to *install* a large group of related packages easily. If it
> > was to *update* a large group of related packages easily, we'd have
> > to install a new meta-kde every time we changed a KDE package.
> > Icky.
>
> I also had thought the meta-packages would be for updating as well.
> How would I update kde other than apt-get install kde? I understand
> your point about bumping the package number on the meta-package too
> much, but it would seem that trying to update a meta-package would
> just check the build numbers of all related packages, and update as
> needed. A meta-package would only get its build number bumped when a
> "sub-meta-package" was added or deleted, not versioned.
>
> From your response, though, I expect that meta-packages aren't
> designed that way.
Not quite. Basically, the meta package only depends on the package being
there, not any specific version of the package. Thus, you say "apt-get
install kde", apt looks and determines that all the packages are
installed and says "yep, these depends are satisfied", since it doesn't
need to look at the version numbers.
apt-get install foobar, where foobar is a package that needs updating,
is a special-case hack. If there was a newer version of the kde
meta-package itself, apt-get install kde would update it. But, for
obvious reasons, it doesn't update the depends; can you imagine, say,
apt-get install evolution, pulling in 30meg of unwanted stuff, just
because there were newer versions of its dependencies available, even
though they weren't needed?
A meta-package isn't a special case at all. It's just a package with a
Depends: line.
--
Daniel Stone <daniel@sfarc.net>
<`0V3RB1FF> HRM. ` DONT TH`NK THAT /EXEC -O SHOULD ROUTE STDURR. JUST STDOUT
<`OV3RB1FF> MAYBE I SHOULD F1LE A BUG AGAINST EPIC: "THIZ INTURFUREZ W1TH MY
OBNOXIOUZ B1FFSTURISMZ ON 1RC"
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