Re: Bits from the experimental autobuilder team (or: For Those Who Care About Experimental...)

[Goswin von Brederlow <brederlo@informatik.uni-tuebingen.de>]

Wouter Verhelst <wouter@debian.org> writes:

> [1] It might be possible to write an apt preferences file to fix this
>     problem differently, but not doing that actually has its advantages,
>     in that we force maintainers to actually know what experimental
>     package versions they're build-depending on.

I'm thinking more of extending the capabilities of apt itself for 2
cases:

1)
apt-get install foo (>= 1.2-3)
or
apt-get install foo>=1.2-3

Sort the known versions of foo according to pin and version like now
but then, instead of picking the top one, pick the first one
fullfilling the version requirement. This could be foo=2.0-5.

2)

apt-get install foo

and foo Depends: bar (>= 1.2-3)

Install bar >= 1.2-3 even if it is not the top candidate. This should
be just like 

apt-get install foo bar (>= 1.2-3)


One exception (or configure option) might be that it refuses to
downgrade or only uses pins over 100 or 500 or something. Or it won't
install a package with a pin lower than the already installed
package. Not sure what would be the most practical there.

MfG
        Goswin