Hi, Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> Are there any real drawbacks? Would it cause worse behaviour or problems > for the error-rewind paths if either the pre-deps, or apt fails to install, > as compared with the current status-quo? Based on the list libc6 (>= 2.3.4), libgcc1 (>= 1:4.1.1), libstdc++6 (>= 4.5), zlib1g (>= 1:1.2.2.3) I think this should be okay if it is wanted. (Please do let debian-devel know when considering changes that would cause that list to expand.) But yes, there are some drawbacks. It would create a false sense of security regarding use of those packages without configuring apt. If apt is in the middle of an upgrade, packages that it pre-depends on can also be in the middle of an upgrade and might not be functioning (yes, many higher-level package managers provide stronger guarantees). Luckily, the four libraries listed above are meant to be usable during an upgrade already. This seems like a good reason to vet future additions to the Pre-Depends list. (See Bug#593177 for more on that subject.) Pre-Depends currently interact poorly with triggers (arguably this is a bug in policy, Bug#582109). dpkg does not consider a pre-depends satisfied unless the package depended on is not waiting for triggers; in practice, that means a costly "dpkg --triggers-only --pending" before upgrading any package that pre-depends on a package with a manpage that has been upgraded. Luckily, none of the four library packages listed above triggers man-db. A separate question is "are there benefits?". As discussed elsewhere in this thread, anyone relying on apt for upgrades would be using apt to upgrade apt, so an alternative to consider would be making apt fake the pre-depends internally. Even so, I can see how actual pre-depends might be simpler and given the modest list of packages to pre-depend on, it sounds okay to me. Hope that helps, Jonathan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20110428002248.GA27168@elie