should a "normal* system have multiple library versions?
as a followup to something i asked earlier, i was curious about
whether it was safe to clean older versions of packages off of a
system i'm currently upgrading. (i inherited this system, so i don't
have a full history of how it got to be how it is.)
more specifically about those packages with multiple versions, most
of them are, in fact, library packages. working from memory, there
were quite a few lib packages that had two versions installed, a small
number with three or more. is that normal?
for comparison purposes, i'm looking at a fully-updated lenny system
right now, and i see not a single example of a lib package for which
multiple versions are installed, which is what i would expect.
so i guess the question is, under *normal* circumstances, if one
sticks with nothing but the stable packages, and does nothing but
normal upgrades, is there *any* reason for a system to end up with
multiple versions of packages? particularly library packages? i
would have thought that, under normal processing, lib packages and
their reverse dependencies would stay in sync as one kept upgrading.
are there curcumstances under which that would *not* be the case?
because my plan is to, for all of those older lib packages, use
"apt-cache rdepends" to see who cares about it and, if no one, purge
it. i see no reason to hang onto useless packages, if they are in
fact useless.
rday
--
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Robert P. J. Day Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA
Linux Consulting, Training and Annoying Kernel Pedantry.
Web page: http://crashcourse.ca
Twitter: http://twitter.com/rpjday
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