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Re: Pre-Depends for postgresql



On Thu, 16 Oct 2003 23:01, Martin Pitt wrote:
> > Why would there be an issue on depending on a more important package?
> >
> > Having an optional/misc package pre-depend on an important/base package
> > seems like a non-issue to me.
>
> adduser is neither essential nor required, thus does not need to be
> installed when installing postgres.  I'm not quite sure what you mean,
> could you please explain this?

If you depend on a less important package then it would be an indication that 
one of the packages in question has the wrong priority and therefore a bug.

If you pre-depend on an equally important package then there may be issues 
related to circular-dependencies at some future time.

If you have a non-base package pre-depend on a base package then the base 
package can never depend on it (base packages must not depend on non-base 
packages).  If you have an "optional" package depend on a package that is 
"important" or "required" then again it would be a bug for any other package 
to have a dependency that results in a circle leading back to your package.

So no matter what happens if you have postgres keep it's current section and 
priority (I can't see postgres becoming a base part of Debian or being 
considered important in the Debian priority system) then any problem related 
to your pre-depends will be a fairly obvious and unambiguous bug in someone 
else's package.

I've recently learnt about some of these things the hard way...  ;)

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