Re: gcc backup in g77 package?
joost witteveen writes ("gcc backup in g77 package?"):
> But now what if somebody reinstalls gcc-2.7.2? This will inevetably remove
> the link to gcc-g77, and then fortran doesn't work anymore...
>
> (I'm already going to make gcc conflict with any other version of gcc but
> 2.7.2, as g77 is promised to be incompatible with gcc-2.8)
>
> BTW, the "gcc-g77" is supposed to be identical to gcc from gcc-2.7.2,
> the only difference being the knowledge about fortran. So, maybe I
> shouldn't bother about making backups of gcc? (The error messages
> >from "gcc-g77" when g77 itself is removed probably is a lot more
> intellegent than the one from gcc itself, which says something about
> interpreting the .f file as object file or something).
There is a need for this kind of thing fairly often, and I'm planning
to provide a way for a package (or administrator) to `override' a file
from a Debian package.
Unfortunately that's not here yet, but it'll turn up soon I hope.
> I guess this means that gcc-2.7.2-deb should be changed to take into
> account for the gcc-g77 binary -- but real problems start to come when
> (if) a GNU pascal comile comes out ... Maybe we should then just all
> provide a gcc that knows about c, c++, fortran, pascal,
> (ada, lisp, cobol, .......)
This is a worse problem - even the feature I propose above won't help
here, because it'll end up with several packages all competing to
replace the same file. I think the only solution here is to make sure
that there is one `super' version of the file that people can install,
and then force people to install that one, rather than having n
different versions all incompatible.
Ian.
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