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Re: RFC: allow output from maintainer scripts



On Mon, Oct 30, 2000 at 09:22:02AM +1100, Brian May wrote:
> I can't help but think though that this indicates a bigger problem
> in our reliance on maintainer scripts - it is not possible to add new
> features without:
> 
> - hard-coding the entire feature in the maintainer script
> 
> AND/OR
> 
> - depending on another package which codes the feature.
> 
> Not sure on the best solution. Here is one that comes to mind:

Yes, this seems to be a general problem.  How about the following
solution?  A bit messy, but might work, maybe with modifications.
Have a distribution called "upgrade-prereq" (pointing to
upgrade-prereq-woody initially) which contains the package
upgrade-prereq and any *major* packages which are necessary for a
significant number of packages from testing/unstable to work.  These
would have to be compiled on a stable system, so that they can be
installed on a stable system.  Then we would have to educate users
(debian(-devel)-announce) that for partial upgrades, one must add the
upgrade-prereq distribution to the /etc/apt/sources.list and install
the package upgrade-prereq.  This package would have versioned depends
on all of the packages in the upgrade-prereq distribution.

Examples of packages which would be suitable for the upgrade-prereq
distribution:

  dpkg   for such things as dpkg-log
  apt    if a new version is needed to handle something special
  man-db for partial upgrades to potato (FHS issue)

We could even make upgrade-prereq an essential package in the stable
distribution which depends upon the correct versions of these
packages, and somehow (how?) ensure that when upgrading the
distribution, the upgrade-prereq package is upgraded first, pulling in
the versions of the key packages needed for the upgrade.

Does this sound at all reasonable?

   Julian

-- 
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

  Julian Gilbey, Dept of Maths, QMW, Univ. of London. J.D.Gilbey@qmw.ac.uk
        Debian GNU/Linux Developer,  see http://www.debian.org/~jdg
  Donate free food to the world's hungry: see http://www.thehungersite.com/



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