Re: Effect of Replaces in coexisting packages

[Ralf Stubner <ralf.stubner@physik.uni-erlangen.de>]

Frank Küster wrote:
> Goswin von Brederlow <brederlo@informatik.uni-tuebingen.de> wrote:
> 
>> My suggestion would be to not replace files but to divert them. That
>> is the only way for a file to be in 2 packages that can coexist.
>> Replaces is realy only working right for moving a file from a to b.
> 
> Ralf, I guess you've noticed that. 

Yes, but I haven't yet put more thought into this.

> Let me just add that I don't like
> diversions;  some of the reasons are in bugs #272341 and #269235.  It
> boils down to the problem that 
> 
> - the dvipdfm package diverted a file from tetex-bin
> 
> - we didn't know about this when we added Replaces/Provides: dvipdfm
> 
> - We have no way to get to know this in a systematic way - you have to
>   check and understand the maintainer scripts of the package you
>   Replace, or force yourself to check /var/lib/dpkg/diversions every
>   time you have "file interactions" with an other package.  Or you learn
>   it the hard way by getting bug reports like the above - but then it's
>   too late.

That sounds indeed ugly. I could imagine that the best solution would be
to use Replaces for what it is meant, ie, remove the metrics from
texlive-fontsrecommended/texlive-fontsextra and have a versioned
Replaces and Conflicts in the font package in question. That should
work, right? The TeX Live package could then Suggest the font package.

I have no idea, though, why Norbert posted his 'don't use Replaces' message.

cheerio
ralf