Re: Bug#3085: bsdmainutils uses inappropriate `Conflicts bsdutils (<<...)'
> > Ian, this is the type of situation where my conditional dependency
> > idea could help. I emailed it over a month ago but you never
> > responded. If you missed it or never received it, let me know and
> > I'll resend it.
>
> Thanks, I did receive it, and I've been giving it some thought.
>
> The best I've come up with so far is a new control file field:
> Breaks: <package> [(<versionspec>)] [, ...]
>
> This would cause dpkg to refuse to install if the package which would
> be broken is also installed, unless --auto-deconfigure is enabled, in
> which case it would deconfigure the package to be broken first. (This
> kind of thing is necessary so that dselect doesn't need to install all
> the packages in some particular order.)
>
> This is much the same effect as if the package being broken had said
> Depends: <package-being-installed> (<< <version-being-installed>)
> or `Provides: <foo>' where the old version of the package being
> installed provided foo but the new version doesn't.
How does this differ from a plain old Conflicts?
> How does this sound ? Anyone else have any comments ?
I don't think this accomplishes what I intended. The difference that
I'm looking for from the current Conflicts (as I understand it) is
subtle. That difference is that if one package is upgraded or
installed, then the conflicting packages must be upgraded as well.
Careful use of Replaces should make it possible to avoid requiring
packages to be installed/upgraded in a specific order.
Where I think this difference would have the most useful impact is in
dselect's conflict resolution screen. Instead of simply informing the
user that package B conflicts with package A, dselect could say that
package B must either be upgraded to the required version or it must
be removed. Perhaps the current meaning of Conflicts (<<version)
could be extended to handle this, but I'll leave that up to you.
David
--
David Engel Optical Data Systems, Inc.
david@ods.com 1101 E. Arapaho Road
(214) 234-6400 Richardson, TX 75081
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