essential packages and Pre-Depends
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On 18 Feb 1998, James Troup wrote:
> If procps is installed and is in an unconfigured state or even an
> usable state temporarily (e.g. it's libc6 and libc5 hasn't been
> unpacked yet), dpkg is not going to die, and in fact I suspect the
> vast majority of {{post,pre}{inst,rm}} scripts won't.
But it may happen. Remember the Murphy law.
> Even if they do, and even in the _exceedingly_ unlikely situation that
> so many do die dpkg actually says "bugger it" and gives up, the
> situation is not nice, but recoverable (simply install libc6 or
> configure procps).
So you are saying that "being able to arrive at a situation that is not
nice" is *not* enough to use a Pre-Depends field?
Are you saying that the (unknown, so far) harm caused by adding a
Pre-Depends line is bigger than all those "not nice" situations you
describe?
Could you explain in a few words which would be exactly, the harm caused
by having Pre-Depends in all essential packages?
> Thus even though procps is essential (IMHO it shouldn't be), if it's
> unconfigured or even unusable, it's not going to make the system
> FUBAR.
So you think that Pre-Depends should be used only to avoid *completely*
FUBAR states? What about half-FUBAR states?
We should try to avoid *most* bad states, including those "not very nice"
ones you refer. This is exactly why the package system was created.
I wonder: Why do you want to make the bo -> hamm upgrade such an
unpleasant experience?
We are already using all essential packages in pre,post scripts without
declaring a dependence. Why do you want all those pre,post scripts to
fail? Yes, you may say "I don't want them to fail, just that it would
not be too bad if it happens". The question would be then:
Why don't you want to *avoid* them to fail?
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