Re: dpkg, ELF, upgrade order, broken systems

[Fernando Alegre <fernando@mars.superlink.net>]

On Mon, 22 Jan 1996, Carl V Streeter wrote:

[...]

> be run.  I think that the assertion that all packages could be unpacked in any 
> order is flawed.  

I think it is a desirable goal. 

[..]

> > I would prefer to have an "elf-update.deb" package whose content would be:
> 
> That would probably be a pain to make, unless it only contains the .deb files.
> and in the postinst, it re-runs dpkg or something.

That's exactly what I am proposing. The file "elf-update.deb" would 
contain only .deb files: 
                  /tmp/libc5.deb
                  /tmp/ld.so.deb
                  /tmp/image.deb
                  ...

Then a postinst script would in fact re-run dpkg. This might require some 
change in dpkg to allow two instances to be running at the same time as 
long as they are working on unrelated packages.
Another solution might be that "elf-update.deb" is empty, except for the 
postinst script. If it has a 

depends: libc5, image (>1.3.58), ld.so (>???) , etc...

Then it would just be necessary to modify dpkg so that it can be called 
in a postinst script. I think this is much more customizable than adding 
a field. It will deal with unforeseen problems much better. I don't think 
is shortsighted at all. All the contrary, adding a field each time there 
is a problem is much shortsighted. The number of fields should be kept to 
a minimum. There is a better way to deal with this kind of problem: 
installation scripts.

Regards,
	Fernando Alegre
	alegre@mars.superlink.net