Re: dependency hell

On Fri, 21 Dec 2007, Paul J Gans wrote:-

takeout <user@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

But I don't want to debate.

Then why post? You're going to get a debate whether you wanted one or
not.

Just curious. So you don't think its a problem.
Would you say most Linux developers agree with you?

I think it is a problem and just said so in a previous post.

Or a few dozen previous posts.

If you look closely at the conflicts, the installation of *some*
packages causes real conflicts. But many of the other conflicts
are just bunk.

Like? Do be specific then we can look and see if the conflicts really
are a load of bunk, or not.

Was it 10.2 that would not let you remove Firefox because it was
*required* for tons of programs.

Yes it was 10.2, and it wasn't that it was required for a "tons of
programs" but that it was "required" for a couple of patterns. Selecting
all the packages you wanted that would have been installed by those
patterns, but not selecting the patterns themselves, allowed the removal
of Firefox.

If you recall, I even did a screenshot to show it was possible, as well
as telling you how I did it. I also did the same to show that it was
possible to not install Open Office as well. The images are still on my
server and, if you'd like a refresher, you can still find them here:

<URL:http://www.davjam.org/~davjam/images/yast_snapshot_no_firefox.png>
<URL:http://www.davjam.org/~davjam/images/yast_snapshot_no_oo.png>

All this with Knoqueror the
default system browser. It was all crap.

You're entitled to that opinion. I think it was a case of you not
thinking what the goal was and finding a way to it. There are many ways
to one point but none of them involve sitting there and bitching about
how the choices SUSE made for what they believed was the most likely
satisfy the most users were not the perfect ones for you.

I do not think that there is a real dependency data base.

There is. Just look at packages.gz files in the repositories. Those list
the dependencies for each package in the repository, including all the
requires and provides, so the dependency solver can sort them out.

Instead
the system depends on the install lists. If program X is in what
openSUSE callss a "pattern", then it assumes that all those programs
depend on each other.

Have you actually done any packaging? Have you looked at the spec files
within an rpm? Or looked at the specification for the pattern files? If
you had, you'd know that was a load of bovine excrement.

A pattern lists several packages that are required to install that
pattern. It also lists suggested packages, that would possibly enhance
one of the other packages. It also lists the conflicts, so you know that
you can't install that pattern if it conflicts with another. There's
nothing that stops you from installing any of the packages that are
listed in a pattern and not installing the pattern itself.

On the other hand, I think it would be difficult to build and
maintain a real dependency data base.

If you mean one that consist of every package available, you're not
going to see one of those. The closest you're going to get is the one
created by zypper from all the different repositories it's told about.


Regards,
David Bolt

--
www.davjam.org/lifetype/ www.distributed.net: OGR@100Mnodes, RC5-72@15Mkeys
SUSE 10.1 32bit | openSUSE 10.2 32bit | openSUSE 10.3 32bit | openSUSE 11.0a0
SUSE 10.1 64bit | openSUSE 10.2 64bit |
RISC OS 3.6 | TOS 4.02 | openSUSE 10.3 PPC |RISC OS 3.11
.

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