Re: Bug#88307: Netbase needs to not depend on not-necessarily-needed packages.
On 5 Mar 2001, Brian May wrote:
> >>>>> "Marc" == Marc Haber <debian-devel.lists.debian.org@marc-haber.de> writes:
> Marc> In the long run, this is a case of what I have been
> Marc> observing in the past quite a few times: The need for
> Marc> "dynamic dependencies". A package should be able to decide
> Marc> in pre/postinst which packages should be pulled in too. This
> Marc> way, netbase could check whether a 2.0, 2.2, or 2.4 kernel
> Marc> is installed and then decide whether to pull ipfwadm,
> Marc> ipchains or iptables. No need to have all three of them
> Marc> installed.
>
> Seems a horrible idea.
>
> apt-get would have to download the entire package just so it can find
> out what is needed to install it...
>
> Especially bad for instance, if you download a large package on your
> stable system, and suddenly find apt-get proceeds to download libc6
> from unstable... No, I don't want the binary package, I want the
> source package so I can recompile it for stable.
>
> I like the current situation where apt-get knows exactly what packages
> it needs before it starts down-loading packages.
>
> Also, suppose the system is booted with a 2.0 kernel when netbase is
> first installed, and then rebooted to 2.2 or 2.4? Should apt-get
> re-execute the postinst script to ensure that the dependencies have
> not changed?
It is said that you can't apply a technological solution to a sociological
problem, but you _can_ apply a sociological solution to a technological
problem. In other words, it sounds as if putting a nice warning message in
the package description is the right thing to do.
Alternatively, these "dynamic dependencies" could possibly be accomplished
by having arbitrary code in the Packages file that determines these
dynamic dependencies. Of course, this would compound an already
aggravating problem -- the fact that the Packages file is _way_ too big
already.
Just a few thoughts for you people to think about...
Regards,
Alex.
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