Hi Simon, On Fri, Apr 28, 2023 at 02:07:33PM +0200, Simon Richter wrote: > Transforming existing diversions: yes, if you can find out about them > without looking at dpkg internal files. It may very well be necessary to > update the file format on one of these, and if that would cause your > script to create nonsense diversions, that'd be another thing we'd have > to work around while building real aliasing support. > > My current mood is "I'd rather focus on a proper solution, not another > hack that needs to be supported by the proper solution." > > Anything we build here that is not aliasing support for dpkg, but > another "shortcut" will delay aliasing support for dpkg because it adds > more possible code paths that all need to be tested. > > Keep in mind that we're here because someone took a shortcut, after all.
I think we have a misunderstanding here. As far as I understand it, the core idea of Luca's approach is that we move all files to their canonical locations and then - when nothing is left in directories such as /bin or /lib - there is no aliasing anymore, which is why we do not have to teach dpkg about aliasing and never patch it. >From my point of view the only reason to try and solve this with a pile of hacks is get us to a state that the current dpkg can deal well with again (because all aliasing is gone). And while I've argued earlier that dpkg will need to support aliasing, I'm trying to get myself convinced that this is not necessary. Personally, I don't have a final conclusion on this yet. Can I ask you to go into more detail as to why you think that patching dpkg is ultimately necessary? At the point where we conclude that no, we cannot move forward without patching dpkg, I fully agree with you that taking more shortcuts is only going to make it worse. Please do understand my research as evaluating all possible approaches (and their consequences) in parallel. I'm not trying to push a particular approach other than trying to move the whole matter forward. Once we have a better understanding, we'll have to build consensus around one of these approaches somehow. Helmut
