Re: binary-alpha and binary-sparc directories

[Raul Miller <rdm@tad.micro.umn.edu>]

Raul Miller:
   > I think this is a bug in the debian packaging mechanisms.

Ian Jackson:
   Well, I could change dpkg so that it would barf in this situation,
   rather than going ahead and removing the files from the earlier
   package, but I think that would have been less helpful.

How about the option of a better record of what has happened?

For example, currently, if multiple packages supply the same file only
the most recently installed package has the files listed in it's .list
file.  If we have package installation time recorded, we wouldn't lose
any information if

(a) all packages which supplied a file had the file listed in their
.list files.
(b) the default behavior of dpkg would be to not remove a file till
all packages with references to it were removed.

If it's a speed issue, perhaps I should spend some time profiling
dpkg?

-- 
Raul