Re: dselect updating when Debian config changes
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On Wed, 15 Sep 1999, Michael Talbot-Wilson wrote:
> How can I prevent dselect from downloading packages that are already
> installed, merely because the Debian version has changed?
Put them on hold.
> Really, it is intolerable that that happens. It can cost a lot of money
> in download fees.
The Debian version isn't changed just to spite you or increase your
downloading fees. As you may know, a Debianized package has more than just
the original author's programs. Also are installation and removal scripts,
config files, menu entries, /etc/init.d scripts, cron scripts, and so on.
If there's a bug in these, wouldn't you rather have Debian release a fixed
version than make you keep the buggy one?
Also, sometimes the Debian maintainers make a mistake, or realize a better
way of doing something. For example, just recently the zless script was
accidentally left out of the package. A few months ago the su binary was
installed non-suid, so it couldn't su. Now, the top binary is missing from
the procps package. In these cases, a new Debian version is required to
fix these mistakes and make things functional again.
> I have attepted to defeat it by general freezes, but that makes it a lot
> of work to select something when I want to upgrade. It is made worse by
> the terrible practice of splitting up the author's source into multiple
> Debian packages.
"Terrible practice"? I would think you'd like it, since it means less to
download if you don't want everything the author includes.
> Several weeks ago I decided that my Debian system had become totally
> unmaintainable. That was after I had modified a lot of selections so I
> could install something, and dselect for some reason told me that if I
> went ahead it would uninstall 90% of my system. I guess, instead of
> looking at thousands of listed packages I was doing group selections.
Possibly you told it not to upgrade those critical packages, and then
upgraded something those packages depend on. Since you said not to upgrade
them, they might be marked for removal instead.
This could especially happen with perl or libc6, since nearly every
package depends directly or indirectly on them.
> Please reply to the list, because I'm not going to ask again if no
> replies show up. Apologies if you've recently discussed it - I've
> resubscribed to the list only to ask this question.
As a final note, you may want to stick with slink instead of following
potato (as i assume you're doing). Since potato is in development, you'll
see many packages being upgraded as they're debugged. In slink, the stable
release, things are only upgraded to fix major security holes and the
like. You could even order the CD then, and save yourself almost any
downloading fees.
- --
finger for PGP public key.
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