yum question, reverting to old packages.

[Richard Hally]

seth vidal wrote:
> On Sat, 2006-09-02 at 23:13 +0300, Panu Matilainen wrote:
>> On Sat, 2 Sep 2006, Jesse Keating wrote:
>>
>>> On Sat, 2006-09-02 at 13:32 -0400, Richard Hally wrote:
>>>> So maybe we should remove --oldpackage/--nodeps/--force from rpm. It
>>>> follows the gnome 'dumb it down' approach.
>>> No, we just don't enable these functions in the "helper" apps.  We don't
>>> want to help you ruin your system, we'll let you do that on your own
>>> with RPM.
>> People wishing for package downgrades are more often than not folks who 
>> run rawhide and other experimental packages and just want an easy way to 
>> back out a broken package. When a bad update has broken your system, what 
>> difference does it make if downgrade is "potentially dangerous"?
> 
> This is the one point that I agree with. I looked at implementing the
> simple flag to allow downgrades to happen provided the user jumped
> through some hoops. I'm a bit crunched for time right now but if you
> want to work on a patch for it I'd take a look.
> 
> The criteria for it, however, is that it can NEVER happen automatically.
> There will be no config option that sets it to happen it will only be
> something one does on the command line (and maybe it should implicitly
> disable -y)
> 
> Seriously, I'd like it to be something that requires hoops, maybe even
> flaming hoops. :)
> 
> -sv
> 
> 
+1
Perhaps a new option added to the set {install,update,remove,list,?} 
Revert?
And certainly disable -y.

My most common use case is (running rawhide):
  go into /var/cache/yum/development, see what the previous package was 
and 'rpm -Uvh --oldpackage <previous package>

If there were a revert option that did just that, it would be helpful.
If doing --oldpackage trashes some part of your system, it is the rpms 
deficiency not yum's.

Thanks,
Richard