Bug#223728: Splitting teTeX isn't as easy as you think

[Adrian Bunk <bunk@fs.tum.de>]

tags 223728 - patch
thanks

Hi Michael,

I read this bug ("tetex-bin needn't depend on xlibs") you sent.

It would be nice if you were able to install LaTeX without having to 
install e.g. xlibs, but besides a few MB disk space I don't see any 
problem with requiring it to be installed.

Splitting teTeX would be nice, but doing it right without causing 
breakages for anyone is a hard task.

As examples, there are at least two obvious breakages in your proposed 
patch:
- xdvi, texdoctk and metafont-xterm-support are splitted from tetex-bin,
  but tetex-bin doesn't depend on them - this is an obvious bug since it 
  breaks upgrades; the only sane way would be to let tetex-bin be a
  pure dependency package that depends on all the packages tetex-bin was 
  splitted into
- you forgot the Conflicts and Replaces of older tetex-bin versions in 
  your xdvi, texdoctk and metafont-xterm-support packages

These are only the obvious problems I saw after looking less than one 
minute at your patch. I expect several other problems to pop up after 
splitted packages have entered unstable.

Splitting teTeX (if it gets ever done) is definitely not something that 
should be done for sarge.

cu
Adrian

-- 

       "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
        of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
       "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
                                       Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed