Re: dpkg 1.1.3: Pre-Depends supported in dselect

[Ian Jackson <ian@chiark.chu.cam.ac.uk>]

Dominik Kubla writes ("Re: dpkg 1.1.3: Pre-Depends supported in dselect "):
...
> Great!  But here is another suggestion:  Have you ever thought about
> Post-Dependencies?  The idea is that if you upgrade a package which will
> break an installed package it will automatically upgrade that package as
> well.  The libc is the perfect example:
> If you upgrade the development libraries from a.out to ELF you will also
> have to upgrade the gcc and binutils as well. So in that case the CONFIG
> file should have an entry like:
> 
> Post-Depends: gcc (>=3D2.7.0-1), binutils (>=3D2.6.0.1)

This is just an ordinary Depends (and furthermore your mailer has
completely mangled your message).

> or something like that.  This will prevent that the upgrade of one packag=
> e
> (eg to fix a security hole) will leave installed software or the whole sy=
> stem
> in an non-functional state.

There's no way to upgrade other software `automatically' from dpkg,
because dpkg will need the .deb files for it.  However, dselect will
do this right, and dpkg will complain about the problems if the
dependencies in all the packages are correct.

...
> =3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D=
> -=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=
> =3D-=3D

Blech :-).

Ian.