Package updating

[seth vidal]

On Mon, 2005-12-19 at 03:33 +0000, Bill Crawford wrote:
> Not really ;) we were all hoping you would do it.

Boy, that's the type statement that really makes someone want to
continue to be an open source volunteer. Sheesh.



> But this sounds like the perfect answer to all the "yum wouldn't update 
> at all because of dependency problem X" mails we see on the list. 
> Getting as much updated as possible in those circumstances would be 
> helpful, particularly for people who want to test (whether it be running 
> rawhide by default, or trying it from -test1 onwards) -- which I realize 
> isn't the case you want to optimize for, of course :)

not really. testers, frankly, should expect problems and be capable of
working around them.

> One point about breaking up transactions: it would allow e.g. a minimal 
> install to be done first, thus solving a lot of problems for people who 
> get halfway through an install and it breaks due to hardware issues, or 
> network problems if doing a net install, or whatever. You'd pretty much 
> guarantee that as long as the first (sub?)transaction completed, you'd 
> have a bootable system, allowing the rest to be fixed up afterwards 


not necessarily. If something is missing a non-library dep that it
requires to boot properly you could still be screwed.

For example: new kernel requires a new mkinitrd or a new SysVinit.
Someone doesn't notice the new requirement and fails to add the SysVinit
>= somever.

Then your system won't boot and you're still stuck. So this is
definitely not a save-all - it would just diminish the chance.

I'm mostly interested in breaking up the transaction for purposes of
lowering the memory footprint of large transaction sets.


but in all seriousness - if you want these features then you have to
work for them. My time is finite and my interest in features I don't use
is fleeting.

-sv