Re: update messages
On Sun, Dec 31, 2006 at 05:05:27PM -0800, Marc Wilson wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 31, 2006 at 05:31:59PM +0000, Digby Tarvin wrote:
> > It makes me rather reluctant to upgrade if some package that I have
> > come to rely on might unexpectedly disappear - perhaps unnoticed
> > until it is urgently needed...
>
> Not to belabor the obvious, but no one seems to have pointed this out in
> the remainder of the thread...
>
> If you're using stable, there's no chance that a package is going to
> disappear from your box unless you deliberately remove it, or deliberately
> install something that conflicts with it and forces it off. See the
> definition of a stable distribution....
>
> If you're using testing or unstable, implicit in that use is that you have
> a modicum of clue. If you have such clue, exactly how is this package
> going to disappear? You're actually going to be paying attention to what
> dselect, or apt-get, or aptitude (shudder), or synaptic, or whatever, tell
> you when you attempt to upgrade, and you won't give them permission to
> remove it.
>
> Aren't you?
Actually yes, it was covered earlier in the thread, but to re-iterate:
I agree it would have been better to start with stable having had no
previous Debian experience, and I did attempt to, but it wouldn't install
on my Fujitsu notebook.
The Debian release system is very good in theory, but the rate at
which hardware changes means that stable if often not usable on
new hardware :(
However even if I had been able to run on stable initially, at
some point the disincentive to upgrade would have become relevent
because upgrading would have involved moving to a new stable release
(Etch), and at that point things could apparently disappear.
> > Another package I just noticed is missing since my dist-upgrade is
> > xlockmore.
>
> And there's the answer. Obviously not. Noticed *since* the dist-upgrade?
> Why didn't you notice *before* the dist-upgrade? It's not like you weren't
> told. For that matter, why did you give explicit permission to remove
> packages by using dist-upgrade in the first place?
Again, it was covered earlier - but the upgrade was because I *needed*
to install the X development libraries, and the only was to satisfy
the dependicies after exploring all suggested alternatives was to
go with the dist-upgrade and accepting the fact that I was going
to lose some packages that I needed. (apparently xorg had undergone
a significant modularity change since my last upgrade).
As to xlockmore - I described the situation badly. Yes, xlockmore
was listed as one of the packages that had to go, but I didn't
recognise it as one that I routinely used. It was afterwards that I
noticed that xlock was gone and then worked out that it was part of
the xlockmore package (rather than an alternative package as I had
mistakenly assumed).
Regards,
DigbyT
--
Digby R. S. Tarvin digbyt(at)digbyt.com
http://www.digbyt.com
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