Re: a follow up - the subject of easier installs just happened to ./

[Lamar Owen <lamar owen wgcr org>]

On Tuesday 16 July 2002 04:04 pm, Konstantin Riabitsev wrote:
> On Tue, 2002-07-16 at 14:46, Lamar Owen wrote:
> > Which would be related to bad packaging, IMHO.  Packages should provide
> > and/or require 'packages', not files, except in the cases of automatic

> This is an incorrect assumption. E.g. I've written packages that require
> /usr/sbin/sendmail -- this way they will work with sendmail, postfix,
> qmail, and other packages. In fact, there is no way to get around this
> with the /etc/alternatives system -- you MUST use file dependencies, and
> not package dependencies.

The MTA packaging is characteristic of this sort of problem.  However, note 
that, on Red Hat 7.3:
1.)	Sendmail provides the package dependency 'smtpdaemon' as well as 
/usr/sbin/sendmail (which is explicitly listed).
2.)	Postfix also provides 'smtpdaemon' AND /usr/sbin/sendmail.

So you do:
Requires: smtpdaemon
and be done with it.

> As you see, this is not really "bad packaging", but quite a necessary
> feature.

If alternative packages provide a common pseudo-package such as smtpdaemon, 
then you don't need file dependencies.  However, explicit provides of names 
that appear to be files may not be a problem, either.

The 'smptdaemon' example above is what I have been calling 'package' 
dependencies -- that may or may not be canonically correct terminology.
-- 
Lamar Owen
WGCR Internet Radio
1 Peter 4:11