On Sun, Jun 30, 2024 at 2:55 PM Bob Marčan via users <
users@lists.fedoraproject.org> wrote:
>
> It's really annoying that when you try to delete a package, it deletes a
> whole bunch of packages
>
that didn't depend on that package and previously worked without it.
>
It is a side effect of the "free" versus "non-free" versions of the same
package. Fedora installs a
"free" version to satisfy dependencies, but then user installs "non-free"
versions and the "free"
versions are removed. Package management is already complex, and even the
definitions of
"free" and "non-free" differ across distros. There are similar issues with
some numerical libraires
where the same functions are implemented with a portable library and
libraries implemented
with a variety of optimizations and even different languages. Fedora
provides "Environment
Modules"
Description : Lmod is a Lua based module system that easily handles the
MODULEPATH
: Hierarchical problem. Environment Modules provide a
convenient way to
: dynamically change the users' environment through
modulefiles. This includes
: easily adding or removing directories to the PATH
environment variable.
: Modulefiles for library packages provide environment
variables that specify
: where the library and header files can be found.
Lmod is widely used in high-performance numerical work and does not need
elevated
privileges to switch configurations. Linux also has the "alternatives"
mechanism that
uses symbolic links to control which program or library will be used, but
needs
elevated privileges to change configurations.
Fedora already uses both mechanisms, presumably because they are just
following
upstream policies, so if cheese, pitivi, and snapshot would use one of the
available
tools the problem could be solved by allowing users to install both free
and non-free
versions of libraries without a conflict (if a user determined that one
version was never
used, it could be removed). An advantage of having multiple versions of a
library
installed is easier testing of situations were one version gives an error.
--
George N. White III
--
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