On Thu, 2005-07-28 at 16:14 -0600, Bruce Sass wrote: > solved above by keeping track of packages which should not be > installed
I suggested a simple way to do this: actually install a no-X package. There may indeed be a better way than this. The important thing to realise is that Debian is in fact seriously flawed and needs to be fixed! I hope that (a) the need for a mutual exclusion guarantee is not in dispute and (b) that the existing unilateral declaration of such an exclusion by the 'Conflicts' declaration in a package is taken as the way to declare such an exclusion, and (c) everyone agrees that Debian does not correctly maintain the invariant and (d) my technique is one way to fix the problem. This leaves open the question of the best way to implement the requirement (my solution is only an existence proof) the important thing is that if you install A which conflicts with B, and then try to install B, the attempt will be refused: more precisely, exclusion declarations specify invariants which must be maintained. There is a problem of course if people override the package manager, which of course must be possible, and that will strongly influence the choice of the best solution for Debian. Question: what object do I file a BUG against in the BTS? -- John Skaller <skaller at users dot sourceforge dot net>
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