* Andreas Jaeger [Jul 05. 2007 09:09]:

* Handling of dropped packages:

Most update problems Thorsten run into in the last time happend, because of:

We dropped packages, but nobody make sure that this package and _all_ subpackages and _all_ xxbit (meaning 32bit/64bit) packages will be removed from the installed system ("successor").

On openSUSE, this happend during Systemupdate with the YaST2 option "remove no longer available packages". But with different Add-On Products, channels and other products from Novell, this is no option for the Enterprise products, and it becomes more and more a problem for openSUSE, too.

So, if a package is dropped in autobuild, we need to make sure that: - All subpackages and xxbit packages are dropped somehow by other RPMs, too.

Dropping packages usually means one of two things 1. functionality is now available by another package 2. functionality is removed Case 1 is the 'package merge" case as documented at http://en.opensuse.org/Upgrade_Dependencies#Merging_a_package The means to express this is via the 'Obsoletes' dependency. Case 2 is the hard one, since there is no package 'taking over', thus no clear place to put the 'Obsoletes' dependency. I do not see any other solution than to handle such cases in the installer. The dependencies of the new product (resp. the new 'core' pattern) could handle the needed 'Obsoletes'.

Or this package has only limited dependencies, which will NEVER change in the feature. For example it has only dependencys to libc. Dependencies for openssl for example are already bad again, because that interface will change and customer will run in update problems.

This sounds like the package is left installed but effectively is abandoned. In this case, the user still should be informed about the 'leftover' as it is no longer maintained.

- We have a successor for all main and subpackages.

The same is true for package renames, package splits, and so on. With the current renameing inflation because of the library naming policy, a lot of people forget to handle all subpackages correct, and we have left overs like -devel or -xxbit packages, which breaks the solver.

This should be catchable in buildservice/autobuild. Klaus --- SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org