Re: Dependency hell

[Richard Hally <rhally mindspring com>]

Warren Togami wrote:

> Richard Hally wrote:
>
> > Please see the list of my attempts to update  my system  to  rawhide. 
> > The thing that seems most incorrect is that rpm or yum do not report 
> > correctly the packages that need to be excluded.  Since there always 
> > seems to be some dependency problem (one gets fixed but another one 
> > stops the update) it would seem that a reliable way to determine 
> > which packages to exclude would be very helpful and save time that 
> > can be put to better use. thanks for any help,
> > Richard Hally
>
>
> 1) Development and test releases never were supported and there is 
> never the expectation that upgrades will go smoothly all the time.  We 
> try our best to prevent breakage whenever possible, but these things 
> inevitably periodically happen when you have dozens of developers 
> working on many interlocking pieces of the puzzle.  We are working on 
> improving the standard processes to avoid more of these issues in the 
> future, but eliminating it completely may never happen.
>
> 2) apt-get upgrade (but not dist-upgrade) avoids the missing pieces 
> automatically.  All the way through FC2 test1 to current rawhide it 
> has worked for me in not leaving a broken system.  The current selinux 
> policy problem needs to be solved though.  Panu have you communicated 
> with the selinux people about this?
>
> Warren
Thanks Warren,  I understand your 1)  above, that is why it is important 
to provide the mechanism to enable people to work around the problem in 
a reasonably proficient manner. 
I'll look into this apt-get , perhaps yet another "update mechanism" 
will be the answer ;-)
p.s.  I've been lurking on the SELinux list since early 2001 and my main 
reason for getting involved with Fedora is to work on SELinux. Perhaps  
I'll be able to "pick up a shovel" once I get past spending so much time 
on this "dependency hell".
Thanks for your help,
Richard Hally