Re: dpkg NMU for slink
On Thu, 23 Jul 1998, Martin Schulze wrote:
> This exactly is the reason for turning it off as default. It is a
> runtime option, just add --force-overwrite by hand. There are still
> too many package overleaps and the only way to find and fix them is to
> turn this option off again and let people install packages.
yes, i'm aware of the command line argument --force-overwrite. i use it a
lot. usually just after dselect has bombed out with an error message
about being unable to upgrade some package because of package overlaps.
please tell me how to get dselect and/or apt to run dpkg with that
argument. i don't know of any way. in fact, as far as i am aware there
is no way to do that. that's what i'm asking for.
if apt and/or dselect made use of a $DPKG_OPTIONS variable, then the
problem would be solved. many other programs (e.g. $LESS for less) use
this method to allow the sysadmin to override the compiled-in default
options.
if you are concerned that people will just set this option and ignore
overlapping packages, the correct way to handle that is to make it easy
for people to report problems. this would involve making dpkg either log
the overlap in some easy to mail format, or offer to mail an address like
overlaps@debian.org to automatically report it. but pissing people off
with irritating defaults which can't be overridden in apt or dselect is
not the right way to do it.
most overlaps are transient problems anyway...only seen briefly in
unstable when packages get renamed or when a big package gets split into
multiple smaller packages. IMO, the "cure" is worse than the disease.
craig
--
craig sanders
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