priorities between virtual packages ...
Hello, ...
I am the maintainer of the ocaml package, which contains an ocaml
compiler suite able to build either bytecode executables to be run on a
virtual machine or native code exectuables. The native code compiler is
available only on some arches (alpha arm i386 ia64 powerpc sparc) and
the bytecode executables are arch independent, so the same package can
run on all arches, but is slower than the native code version.
Upto now, packages (like advi, hevea, coq to name just a few) were all
arch: any, and the executable built was the native code version on the
arches supporting it and the bytecode version on the other arches.
This has as result that there were multiple copies of exactly the same
packages, which is a waste of space as well as a uneedfull use of the
buildd resources (in particular for the slower arches), so we decided to
try to build the bytecode version arch: all and the native code version
for the arches that support it.
Now, the problem is when we do that, there will be two packages
available for the arches supporting the native code compilers, which
will be made to both provide the same virtual package.
The behavior we want, so that it is transparent to our user, is to
install the the native package when it is available, and the bytecode
package if not.
The apt-get man page says that for build-depends, apt-get will choose a
random package from the packages providing the virtual package, but it
seems that apt-get install will refuse to install a virtual package, but
provide a choice of packages providing the virtual package.
BTW, it would be nice to have the short description shown in addition to
the package name and version.
Matthias Urlich suggested to me that a priority field or something such
in the .dsc file could solve my problem. I am ready to implement this
(altough i don't have much time, but i don't need this in a hurry
anyway), but would like to get opinions from the apt-get maintainers on
this subject. Well, particularly, if you think this will break things
and is a stupid idea or something such, i would like to know before i
invest time in this.
Also, i may be willing to look at the versioned virtual depends while i
am at it also. Is there any material already available or a hint at a
thread about it ? I did look at the last 3 month of the deity mailing
list, but didn't find anything relevant, and this list does not appear
to be searchable.
Friendly,
Sven Luther
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