To upgrade or not to upgrade....

[James Wilkinson]

Markku Kolkka wrote:
> Fedora packages don't install anything in /opt, so it will be untouched
> in an upgrade.

I replied:
> Unless the files are part of a third-party RPM that is (recorded in the
> RPM database as being) dependent on a particular version of a Fedora
> Core package. In that case, the upgrade will update the old Fedora Core
> package, and try to upgrade the third-party RPMs to a version that *can*
> co-exist with the new Core package. If it can't find any upgraded RPMs,
> it will remove them, to keep the RPM database consistent.

Paul Howarth asked:
> Is this behaviour documented somewhere, since I have yet to see it after a 
> number of upgrades to FC6? I have yet to see a package removed as part of an 
> upgrade if it wasn't explicitly obsoleted by another package.

Hmm. That's what I thought happened. I haven't explicitly checked this...

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DistributionUpgrades
# The installation overrides any third party packages which conflict with
# the default installation set.
which, to my mind, is not the clearest language.

I'm sure I read something fairly definitive to this effect, but now I
can't find it anywhere. Nor yet can I find any documentary evidence on
the Web one way or another.

I would maintain that Anaconda *ought* to remove packages if there's no
other way to update Core packages, but without trying, I've no idea.

(But that's why responses go to the list, right? So you can catch my
mistakes?)

James.

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