Re: [RFC] Changing APT to pre-depend on ${shlibs:Depends}
On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 18:48, Julian Andres Klode <jak@debian.org> wrote:
> But that we do want to prevent a broken APT -- when using the common
> "dpkg -i ...; apt-get install -f" idiom (where ... is APT) -- certainly
> is an argument.
Let me try to rephrase that:
The only strong positive argument for the change is that a user might
break APT if he carelessly runs dpkg -i apt.deb ?
Thats a pretty weak argument in my eyes if that is really meant:
While dpkg -i … is common, i seriously doubt that it is common to install
an upgrade of apt with it as people do this trickery for packages they can't
get from an archive easily.
(Why do they do this trigger? -> We should fix the cause, not the result)
In this sense, i would have bigger fears that they install a newer
(incompatible) libwhatever alongside a silly game with dpkg -i breaking
APT (or anything else depending on libwhatever) which nothing can prevent.
I personally have no problem with the pre-depends on a technical level,
but as they seem to provide nothing worthwhile i would like to avoid
problems on a social level which will arise as soon as you try to argue
why APT gets pre-depends and many many other packages a "normal"
user can't live without doesn't get them. Be it another package manager
with a (currently) smaller market share or something completely different:
I mean, if i break nano how am i supposed to edit a file? sed?
And yes, i know, in theory you have vim-tiny around, but that could
be broken, too, and i assume you will find a lot of people saying
'it is always broken!' -- and editors was just a bad example…
I could have said kernel, grub or ${important-package} instead…
Best regards
David Kalnischkies (who is a vi fanboy at heart)
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