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On 06:24 Wed 16 Apr , Ciaran McCreesh wrote: |
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> What all are blocks used for? |
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> |
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> a) Marking that two unrelated packages are mutually incompatible at |
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> runtime because they happen to collide, for example on a commonly named |
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> executable. |
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> |
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> b) Marking that two related implementations are mutually incompatible at |
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> runtime because they both provide the same binary. |
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> |
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> c) Marking that a file that used to be provided by one package is now |
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> provided by another package that is either depending upon or depended |
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> upon by the original package. |
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> |
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> d) Marking that a package has been moved into another package. |
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> |
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> Are there any other uses? |
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A slight tweak that you may have already considered: a single package is |
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split into multiple packages with a metabuild (named the same as the |
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original single package) in a newer version -- for example, modularized |
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X. |
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|
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> For future EAPIs, being able to tell the package manager that your |
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> block is of one of the types above will help the package manager smooth |
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> out the upgrade path for users. For example, for class d) blocks such |
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> as the recent coreutils / mktemp mess, the package manager can suggest |
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> to the user to install the new package and then uninstall the old |
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> package, rather than forcing the user to uninstall the old package by |
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> hand (possibly leaving their system without critical utilities) and then |
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> install the new package. |
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> |
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> I strongly suspect that in many (but not all) cases the package manager |
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> could be making users' lives a lot easier than it currently is... |
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Sounds like a great idea. |
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Thanks, |
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Donnie |
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-- |
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