Re: Upgrade procedure for tetex
On Thu, 6 Mar 1997, Chow Chi-Ming wrote:
> >>>>> "Guy" == Guy Maor <maor@ece.utexas.edu> writes:
>
> Guy> Chow Chi-Ming <cmchow@se.cuhk.edu.hk> writes:
> >> This means once a package is released, other packages may depend on
> >> it and therefore a replacement package has to carry the old package
> >> name forever. Doesn't sound too good to me.
>
> Guy> Not forever, only until the other packages start depending on the
> Guy> new name.
>
> No. If all other packages depend on the new name, the distribution
> will be problem-free for a _fresh_install_. However, we cannot assume
> that there are no machine with the old version of the packages that
> depend on the old name. When such a machine is upgraded, there'll be
> problems.
This brings up one question: Do we want easy upgradabilty from _any_
Debian version or just from the latest stable release and everything
inbetween (unstable)?
IMHO when should try to make the system easily upgradable for users with
Debian 1.1.* and Debian 1.2.* and inbetween, but do you think it's
necessary for us to handle an upgrade from 0.93 to 1.3?
I just had a short look to our Policy Manual but haven't found a statement
on it. Perhaps we should decide how much "upgradable" our system should be
and put this into the Manual.
For me it would be perfectly alright, if a user with 0.93 or something
similar has to follow a specific upgrade procedure (i.e. not everything is
handled by dselect automagically, but he has to run `dpkg
--force-something' a few times). It would be ok if he had a `Release Notes
for 1.3' document that has a section about `ancient versions.'
And don't forget: the project is not very old now. If we really bring out
a new release every 3 or 4 months in the future, there will be lots of new
Debian versions around in the next years, since not every user wants to
upgrade his system every 3 months. If we have to `Provide' all old
packages and have `Conflicts' lines for packages that were dropped a year
ago, things will really get confusing in the next years.
Another example: I maintain the package `anacron', which was initially
called `pe'. `pe' was uploaded to experimental only (if I remember right)
and was renamed to `anacron' and is now in unstable. So I'll have to keep
the `Replaces: pe' line for ever and Debian can not contain a package
called `pe' in the future! Maybe we need another way to tell dpkg which
packages have been dropped (a list of dropped packages per release?).
Just my 2 cents,
Chris
-- Christian Schwarz
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