Re: Version numbers?
On Tuesday 15 August 2006 01:26, John Hasler wrote:
> David J. Bush writes:
> > But it seems Debian has its own numbering system. For example the Testing
> > "kde" package is labeled (5:47)
>
> The Debian "kde" package is not an upstream package. It is a metapackage,
> which exists only to pull in a set of KDE packages by depending on them.
...
> Depends: kde-core (>= 5:47), kde-amusements (>= 5:47), kdeaccessibility (>=
> 4:3.4.3), kdeaddons (>= 4:3.4.3), kdeadmin (>= 4:3.4.3), kdeartwork (>=
> 4:3.4.3), kdegraphics (>= 4:3.4.3), kdemultimedia (>= 4:3.4.3), kdenetwork
> (>= 4:3.4.3), kdepim (>= 4:3.4.3), kdeutils (>= 4:3.4.3), kdewebdev (>=
> 4:3.4.3) Suggests: kde-i18n (>= 4:3.4.3), x-window-system-core
It is probably worth commenting on the 4: before the version number 3.4.3 on
may of those kde packages. Debian has to have strictly increasing version
numbers to all upgrades to work properly. Sometimes, due to mistakes or what
ever or due to a change in the way the upstream version numbers are assigned
the number needs to go backwards, and in this case they prepend the n: to the
version number and then can increase it to n+1: if the upstream number goes
backwards.
I think such a thing must have happened in the early days of kde, because each
new major version of kde has this version+1 appended (so kde2 was 3: and kde3
is 4: - you will also notice that kde3's kdelibs package is called kdelibs4)
--
Alan Chandler
http://www.chandlerfamily.org.uk
Reply to: