Re: A summary of where I think we are on the technical side of the merged /usr discussion

[Tim Woodall <debiandevel@woodall.me.uk>]

On Tue, 17 Aug 2021, Sam Hartman wrote:

> > > > > > "Luca" == Luca Boccassi <bluca@debian.org> writes:
>
>    Luca> Wouldn't a pre-depends solve the ordering problem in this
>    Luca> case?
>
> No.
>
> At least it's really hard to prove that it does, we have a bad track
> record of getting it wrong, and if it were to work in a
> specific instance it would depend on implementation details rather than
> simply on guarantees made by the interfaces of dpkg and apt.
>
> I'm not saying that something like that can't be part of a solution.  If
> it is, it will be because someone put in real effort into reasoning
> about the correctness of the solution.
>
> --Sam

I'm not proposing this as a solution, or even a part solution, but I
have a script that generates a set of Depends: between essential
packages that (I believe) guarantees that they will install and will (I
hope) "fail" if no such solution is possible.

(I don't use this any more, I'm using "essential-on-a-diet" which I
manage manually but it's something I have which others might be able to
adapt into something more useful)

http://www.woodall.me.uk/debian/find_depends.sh